


Raincoat After the Rain

by sincerelyyourstruly



Series: Walk Slowly, You'll Get Farther [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Phil Coulson, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Matt Fraction-inspired Clint Barton, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mission Fic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strike Team Delta, Temporary Character Death, What Happened in Budapest (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:14:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 73,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24332638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincerelyyourstruly/pseuds/sincerelyyourstruly
Summary: “Just like Budapest all over again!”“You and I remember Budapest very differently.”Or, another “What happened in Budapest?” fic, but mixed with a fix-it.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Phil Coulson, Clint Barton & Phil Coulson & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Series: Walk Slowly, You'll Get Farther [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756666
Comments: 128
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha shouts it over the ruined streets of New York, over repulsor blasts, over the rhythmic draw of Clint’s arm: “Just like Budapest all over again!” 

It wasn’t. 

“You and I remember Budapest very differently,” is all Clint has the wherewithal to say, in between nocking and shooting the fastest releases of his life. 

Over the years of their infamous partnership, Natasha has brought up Budapest as a gauge to measure how close Clint is to losing his mind. It’s surprisingly effective.

**_Eindhoven, Netherlands, 199?_ **  
_Clint: [Jumping off the Eindhoven Water Towers.]_  
_Natasha: [Repelling off instead.] “Hey, this reminds me of Budapest!”_

**_Tony Stark’s Malibu Mansion, 2000-something._**  
_Clint: [Organizing the security for Stark’s birthday party as punishment for “accidentally” shooting General Ross in the shin after an “arm spasm.”]_  
_Natasha: [Sipping Sauvignon Blanc.] “At least it’s not Budapest.”_

**_A very nice barn all things considered, somewhere in rural Kansas, 199?_ **  
_Clint: [Tied to a chair, splinters in his ass, daggers taking a vacation in each of his thighs.]_  
_Coulson: [Unconscious.]_  
_Natasha: [Strung up by her wrists with chains hanging from a support beam.] “It could’ve been your arms, like in Budapest.”_

**_Warehouse cell 10 klicks outside of Tallinn, Estonia, 2000-something._ **  
_Coulson: [Shouting through a lost comm.]_  
_Clint: [Trying to tongue thrust his way to the lock picks in his false tooth.]_  
_Natasha: [Counting how many broken nails she will have to avenge by way of her thighs around men’s fragile little necks.] “My nails look worse than when we were in Budapest.”_

**_Ta Fook, The Mergui Archipelago, Myanmar, 2000-something._**  
_Clint: [Scaling a rock formation with six Curious George Band-Aids just on his face.]_  
_Natasha: [Admiring her new garrote while sunbathing.] “The weather’s almost as nice as Budapest.”_  
_Coulson: [Hiding Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels behind Tolstoy’s War and Peace.]_

She’s not bringing it up because they’re currently up the ass of an alien invasion. She’s not bringing it up because Clint only has eleven arrows left. She’s not even bringing it up because only four hours ago, Clint got his mind hijacked by a god suffering from paternal angst and delusions of grandeur. 

No, Natasha’s bringing it up because Phil Coulson is dead. 

And Clint will spend the rest of what he hopes is his relatively short life thinking – _knowing_ – it was his fault. 

The Budapest Operation was simultaneously the best and worst op in SHIELD’s history of tactical missions. 

There were eight unofficial reasons why: 

1\. Clint was still green at SHIELD.  
2\. At that point, his working relationship with Coulson left a lot (everything) to be desired.  
3\. Brock Rumlow was a dick.  
4\. Nick Fury was a bigger dick. But to be fair, it oscillated.  
5\. Clint overheard a conversation he really shouldn’t have, or should have. Depends on who you ask.  
6\. Trick Shot and Barney had taken a freelance job in Sárbogárd, Hungary.  
7\. Hawkeye was supposed to kill the Black Widow.  
8\. And then Clint Barton didn’t. 

Hawkeye had been accused of concealing many mutations: perfect aim, perfect vision, enhanced intuition. But if Clint, just Clint – former carnie, Paleolithic period weapon enthusiast, eternal dog lover, and secret polyglot – had a mutation, a superpower, a whatever, it was this: He could tell the difference between the people who _wanted_ to fight, and the people who _had_ to. 

Coulson was the former. 

Clint was the latter. 

Maybe that’s why they would never get along. 

Contrary to what anyone and their unhealthy attachment to weaponry would think now, Clint and Coulson didn’t always work together like two scarily efficient cogs in the machine that would become STRIKE Team Delta – smallest STRIKE Team in SHIELD history, most successful STRIKE Team in SHIELD history, and the lone STRIKE Team that never needed an extraction plan. Coulson would say they formally met in an extremely unhygienic alley after Clint picked his pocket seven different times in seven different disguises. How Clint met Coulson was more…character-building, to put it nicely. 

_When Coulson met Clint_

“That’s enough now, Barton. Don’t you think,” someone says from the mouth of the alley. 

Clint’s pretty sure the last part of that statement should’ve been phrased as a question. But then again, the G-man suddenly standing over him in his fuck-off Ray-Bans, just-expensive-enough suit, and adjusting his cufflinks with the insouciant air of someone who knows they’ve already won, doesn’t care about an answer that isn’t, “Sir, yes sir!” 

The blood steadily pouring out of the picturesque through and through shot in his left thigh screams, “Yes, enough!” but the beautiful cat-and-mouse game Clint has led this guy on for the past three months demands the respect it deserves. 

“Not quite,” Clint drawls, head tipping back onto rough brick, eyes shut. 

G-man crouches down. It’s a mistake. 

In seconds, Clint’s clicked the heel of his right boot that releases the switchblade at the toe. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know it’s level with G-man’s jugular. 

G-man sighs. “Switchblades are illegal in Barcelona.”

“That’s why it’s in my boot, FBI-guy,” Clint grins. 

“I’m Agent Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” G-man sighs again. 

Clint experiences a stunning sense of relief that he isn’t Interpol. Clint hates Interpol. 

Because Clint’s also an asshole, he asks, “So is this my intervention?” 

Later, Clint will blame it on the blood loss that he hasn’t noticed Coulson backing away from the knife in slow increments. And much, much later, Clint may concede Coulson has skills.

“Mr. Barton,” Coulson begins, sun shining behind him like some kind of government messiah, “I’m here to make you an offer.”

“One I can’t refuse?” Clint shoots back. 

Coulson’s lips relax, and for the first time since he walked into what’s looking to pan out as Clint’s place of death, the unflappable countenance drops. 

“It’s one you’re not going to want to.” 

Clint thinks about all the running he’s been doing, his slender wrists, and the small probability that an organization that’s been chasing him for three months would actually want to kill him after going to so much trouble. 

Just one more question: “And if I want to bleed out in this alley?” 

Clint swears he sees a smile. 

“Then I’ll honor your request.”

Two hands clasp in the dimming brightness of Barcelona’s setting sun. 

_When Clint “met” Coulson_

The problem with John Mayer, Clint ponders while peering down the scope of his rifle and humming ABBA’s _Dancing Queen_ , is, well, many things, but the main one is that nobody will ever love John Mayer as much as John Mayer loves himself. That’s why Clint suspects John Mayer and the idiotic arms dealer currently in his crosshairs would trade bedazzled friendship bracelets, or at least compare acoustic guitar collections. 

“You can dance, you can jive. Having the time of your life,” Clint murmurs. 

Clint is decidedly _not_ having the time of his life. Clint’s problems beyond the meta of John Mayer are these: his favorite alias’s bank account – Francis Bon-Bon – has been frozen, determining whether or not killing this arms dealer now is going to spook his suppliers and/or the more important men he undoubtedly works under, and worst of all, the suit that’s pointing a pistol at Clint’s mark’s head. 

Clint isn’t particularly attached to his mark’s head, but it leaves him with choices he really didn’t want to be aimed at his own head in the first place. He could kill both men and beat feet back to his safe house, he could kill the suit and track the arms dealer to another location, he could kill the arms dealer and risk waiting around to get his proof of death, or he could find a new job altogether. 

Oh, look at that. The suit’s killed Clint’s man. Decision made. 

Clint could be vengeful about the botched job, but he thinks he’ll repay the unassuming suit – thin brown hair, broadish shoulders, pale skin – for his lost funds the Barton way: fucking with him as much as humanly possible. 

In the span of three months, ninety-one days, 2184 hours, Clint leads the suit through 26 countries, a taping of a Brazilian soap opera, two rival gang meetings, a drug bust, several cricket games, a tailor shop, four art museums, and a Swiss chocolate factory. 

Clint doesn’t shoot at him once. 

Before Clint Barton would have gladly laid down his life for Phil Coulson, for Natasha Romanoff, there was Budapest: An op Clint thought he was being given as a death sentence sorted into a single file, and an op SHIELD thought would be perceived as the promotion it truly was. 

Too bad it turned out to be neither of those things.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Clint met the Black Widow...the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has violence. I don't know that _I_ would describe it as graphic - it's more implications of violence that could probably toe the line - but that's a relative term nonetheless, so please err on the side of caution.

For any SHIELD personnel Level 8 and higher, or had the great misfortune of being Brock Rumlow, the Budapest op didn’t begin in Budapest. It began in Belarus – where the most recent whispers of one Black Widow quietly crept. 

Clint’s met her once previously, came face-to-face with wine red hair and winsome green eyes and lived. Not to tell the tale, of course, one doesn’t gossip about the Black Widow and survives to see another glorified dawn. It’s one hospitalization and a handful of summers after Clint’s left the circus that their metaphorical artillery does intersect. Clint could’ve gone without the experience. 

_When Clint met the Black Widow (the first time)_

Wealth wears many dresses and Clint thinks he’s seen them all, be it from afar, stealing from their plentiful pockets, or performing the most precise of heists. Clint could plot the course of his life by the way he viewed wealth at the time:

Age 5 – Shoes without holes or shoes that weren’t Barney’s. 

Age 7 – Filled dinner plates where Mama didn’t have to carefully space out the food. 

Age 11 – A roof that wasn’t a big top tent or a caravan. 

Age 17 – Enough cash to buy bowstring rosin and bullets. 

Age 22 – The $9,000 watch Clint lifted from a fat wrist. 

Monte Carlo changes Clint’s musings on wealth forever. Quarter and ward of Monaco, Monte Carlo couldn’t simply be called the northern entertainment district of the second-smallest country in the world, it was a place on the precipice between riches and recklessness, fast cars and faster hands, the golden age and the gone age. This would probably be Clint’s first and last visit for legal and not-so-legal escapades. For a hitman, assassin, sniper, mercenary, or whatever Clint decides to label his occupation on any given day, Monte Carlo may possess the rare characteristic of _almost_ looking as lavish in the light as it does in the dark, but faces get remembered as often as they are forgotten in cities where the people are what makes the land feel larger than it is. 

Clint’s here to gamble at the invitation of Rafael Alcazar, _Rey de los Dioses_ , a Cuban crime lord with an odd affinity for collecting Russian souvenirs – matryoshka dolls, Gzhel, ushanka – and who Clint _accidentally_ saved the life of before Alcazar made a name for himself and cut off his first head. 

_“Do you know why it’s Rey de los Dioses, and not Dios de Reyes, Francis?” Alcazar asked a nineteen-year-old Clint over the puffs of his cigar._

_Clint’s laugh sounded so nervous he didn’t recognize it. “Uh, can’t say I do.”_

_“People expect a god of kings, not a king who rules gods,” Alcazar grinned, putting his cigar out on the forehead of the body he knelt over._

The few contacts Clint has in Russia call him _Король пустоты_. He hopes they’re right. 

Casino de Monte-Carlo, Clint imagines, is the architectural wet dream of anyone who wants their casino, opera, and ballet needs all in one building. Owned and operated by the Société des bains de mer de Monaco, a public company in which the Monaco government and the House of Grimaldi have a majority stake, Casino de Monte-Carlo has maintained its Beaux-Arts design: deep sculptural decoration, grandiose balustrades, and balconies for any kind of dramatic declaration. Clint’s just finished salivating over a Porsche 918 Spyder sitting at the entrance when he decides to visit the bar. 

The trick, when one finds themselves rubbing elbows with a criminal who’s not nearly as smart as they think they are, is to have a drink in hand, because the absence of a glass is much more noticeable, even to those hideously self-involved. Clint orders a vodka soda and lime, hold the vodka – his old man was an alcoholic bastard and people will draw the conclusion Clint wants them to have, actual booze in attendance or not. 

“Monsieur Bon-Bon?” someone asks to his left. 

Clint can’t help but smirk at the name. Every time. 

“That’s me,” he grins, back against the mahogany bar. 

The attendant smiles back indulgently. “Monsieur Alcazar’s party is in the White Hall. Allow me to escort you.”  


“Lead the way.”

Following the man’s deep indigo suit is easy enough, so Clint lets his eyes wander the rooms they’re passing through – the Renaissance room, the Europe room, the Americas room –and the various displays of European finery surrounded by the ambiance of clicking roulette wheels, rolling die, flipping cards, and the cha-ching of slot machines. 

“Here we are,” the attendant says, pulling back a curtain. 

The White Hall is less private than Clint thought it would be, what with the curtain and how closely adjoins with the main rooms. It is white – just as Clint suspected – yet broken up by Rococo ornamentation, frescos, and what looks to be Paul Gervais’s painting, _The Florentine Graces_. Clint’s glad for the terrace, and it’s not for the panoramic views of the Mediterranean Sea and French Riviera. He’s going to need a quick escape tonight, his gut feeling never wrong. Any chance to jump out of a building is a fine party by Clint’s standards. 

“Ah, Francis. You’re finally here! Let me look at you,” Alcazar calls, dress shoes clacking on the white marble floor as he leaves his congregation of six to greet Clint. 

Meaty hands clasp Clint’s face, knocking his tinted glasses askew. “In the flesh,” Clint says, forcing an agreeable expression on his face. 

“Come, come. I make introductions,” Alcazar says, righting Clint’s shades and leading him across the hall with a hand on his back. 

He recognizes a couple of Alcazar’s men, the rest he doesn’t, but it’s the single woman who stands out like a red fury in a room full of white that’s pinging every instinct Clint has. 

“…and this,” Alcazar pauses, “is Nadia Yahontov.” 

_No it isn’t_ , Clint thinks, holding his gloved hand out anyway. 

“Pleasure,” Nadia smiles. Clint isn’t surprised when her own gloved hand meets his. He may see better from a distance, but Clint knows when someone is hiding gun calluses. 

And on the off-chance Clint didn’t catch that move, Yahontov is a Russian surname once associated with two precious stones – rubies and sapphires – like the ones _Nadia_ has around her neck, not to mention the shade of red on an hourglass of a particular spider. It must be a slow week for the Red Room. 

“Likewise,” Clint replies. “It’s just such a _pleasure_ to meet Rafael’s _friends_.” 

Nadia smiles again, but it’s stretching, infinitesimal as it may be, and Clint feels an absurd amount of satisfaction because of it. 

“Well, he’s so easy to be friendly with,” Nadia says, putting a white-gloved hand on Alcazar’s arm, fingers furling into the fabric. 

Alcazar leans down to whisper something in Nadia’s ear. She giggles and makes her way back toward the poker table where Alcazar’s men are starting to take their seats. Clint watches Alcazar watch Nadia’s ass the whole way there. 

Alcazar chuckles. “She is…distracting, no?” 

“Yes,” Clint mutters. “Yes, she is.”

Clint knows they’re each distracted for entirely different reasons. 

Four of Alcazar’s men have shit hands, Clint’s is vaguely decent, and he’s certain Nadia bluffs and then folds no matter what cards she has. Clint won the first round and has plans to sit back for the following three when Alcazar stands at the arrival of a server and champagne. With completely dexterous hands, she pours eight glasses and disperses them. 

Alcazar holds his glass aloft. “To old friends,” he cheers, looking at Clint. “And to the new,” he finishes, leering at Nadia. 

There’s a chorus of “Salud!” and one “Za Zdarovje” as their glasses clink in greeting. By the time glasses are reaching mouths, Clint’s fumbled a chip he’s noticeably been messing with to the floor. Clint ducks his head under the table, sneaking a glimpse of Nadia’s viciously sharp stilettos and resurfaces after another two seconds. Nadia gives Clint a look then. A look that is a lot more conspiratorial than he’s comfortable with. 

Alcazar, the man of the hour, is also drunker than Clint’s comfortable with – his brown eyes blacker, the creases in his face deeper, and his skin ruddier from the alcohol.

“Nadia,” Alcazar rumbles, swirling the remaining dregs of scotch in his glass. “Do you know the game the fairer sex will forever fail at? Beyond poker, that is.”

His men chortle, to Clint’s annoyance, but seemingly not to Nadia’s. 

She simpers across the table. “No, but you must tell me.”

“It is business, mi reina. Women do not have the, how do you say… _savoir-faire_ for business.” 

Clint takes a hefty sip of watered-down soda water. Aw, ice, no. 

Nadia adopts a confused expression. “You call business a game.” 

“The greatest game of all,” Alcazar agrees to the murmurs of his compatriots. “It requires much forethought. Strategy. Tact.” 

Alcazar doesn’t stop. “Action over idleness is essential. Do you have these things, Nadia?”

Though it may be a question not looking for an answer, Nadia replies anyway, “Oh, I’d like to think so.”

Clint knows she would have had to time it down to the millisecond, but he’s still impressed when five heads hit the green felt of the poker table in near unison – mouths foaming, veins pronounced, and the whites of their eyes a solid red. 

Poison in the champagne, an oldie but a goodie. Nice. Well, not nice for the five dead guys. Not for Clint either, now that he thinks about it, but he strokes his third favorite knife in his sleeve and feels better. 

While to an extent he was expecting at least some horrified yelling for security from Alcazar, Clint finds his eyes are noiselessly locked onto their Russian friend. Across the table, Nadia is no longer, the Black Widow all that remains. He’s jealous of her undercover skills, her utter control of her microexpressions. She’s changed the set of her shoulders, put away her pouting lower lip, and something around her eyes goes from doe-eyed to deadly. 

“Do you know, Mr. Alcazar,” the Black Widow says in a low voice like she’s trading foreign intelligence secrets, “the game _men_ will forever fail at?”

Alcazar is quiet, his gaze since returning to dumbfounded at his empty champagne glass.

The Black Widow rises from her chair, taking her cards with her, the only apparent sound in the room the snap of her stilettos.

Leaning against the table in front of Alcazar, she reveals her cards one by one: ace, king, queen, jack, and a ten. The hearts of the suit are starting to resemble artistic drops of blood the longer Clint looks at them.

A royal flush. 

And a confirmation Clint is still exceedingly terrible at counting cards. 

“Waiting,” the Black Widow whispers. 

Alcazar’s skin has taken on what Clint thinks should be a physically impossible pallor considering the original richness of his complexion, but manages to repeat, “Waiting.”

“Yes, waiting,” she starts to circle the table again, stopping right behind Alcazar’s chair. Clint can’t decide if he’s an idiot or the smartest fucker in the world for not turning around. 

“Men like you, men that call themselves _kings_ , you want your money now, you want your women now, and you want your power…” the Black Widow pauses, plucking a knife from the elaborate updo that’s evidently been holding her hair together, “Now.”

Clint sees the desperation in Alcazar’s eyes as the crime lord finally looks at him in a plea for help.

_It’s not my show_ , Clint wants to say. 

Instead, he throws his feet on the table and tips his chair back to balance on the legs. If Clint is going to die from a slit throat, he’s going to do it the way he does everything else – with absolutely no self-preservation skills. 

Disdain dons on Alcazar’s face at the display, but from Clint’s peripheral vision, the Black Widow is intensely focused on Alcazar’s neck. He would be more amused if he didn’t know widows eat their mates. 

She continues with a soft drag of her knife down Alcazar’s nape. “What you call idleness, I call patience. You want to do your dealings in the dark yet desire your accolades for them in the daylight. I will tell you this, Mr. Alcazar, no one can taste prestige without the potential for payback. Not even you.” 

“Are you going to kill me,” Alcazar rasps. 

The Black Widow’s smile is a show of teeth more than anything else. “Because you’re a businessman, I’ll offer you a deal. I would never want to accuse a man such as yourself of…inaction.” 

Clint subtly tracks her hand as it reaches for his untouched glass of champagne, placing it lightly on Alcazar’s forgotten cards before returning to her post behind him. 

“Pick,” she says. 

Alcazar’s brows draw inward and his hands flex, but the Widow must sense his bewilderment because a knife immediately taps at his Adam’s apple, and then clinks on the edge of the champagne glass. 

Pick your poison, ha. Clint loves a good idiom. 

“I can’t –” Alcazar protests. 

“You will,” the Widow commands. “Or I will choose for you. Perhaps your friend’s glass is untouched as yours was.” 

_I wouldn’t bet on it_ , Clint thinks, undoing the first button on his white tuxedo jacket. 

The silence is its own symphony, building, and building, and building until the crescendo is signaled with a “Five.” 

Everything looks prettier in the dark, but the dawning realization on Alcazar’s face at the Widow’s countdown must be one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen, judging by the pleased tilt of her lips and the slight flare of her nostrils, as if she can already smell the blood. 

“Four.”

“You want money, yes? I’ll do –”

Clint undoes the second button.

“Three.” 

“People will come for you! I –”

Clint undoes the third button. 

“Two.”

“I’ll haunt your grave, perra! You’ll s –”

Clint undoes the fourth button.

“One.” 

“Please.”

Clint undoes the fifth button. 

Only some of the blood spray hits Clint’s black dress shirt, saving his recently removed jacket from resembling the cards of a royal flush in the suit of hearts.

Rafael Alcazar is dead, at the hands of the one Russian souvenir he couldn’t collect. 

“So did you bribe the server or threaten to kill her?” Clint asks about the Widow’s champagne maneuver. 

The Widow finishes cleaning her knife on Italian wool before answering, “I find that both is the most effective course of action.”

He nods like he knows this to be true – Clint only knows that a little bit – making a show of returning his feet and chair to the floor without also making an ass of himself. 

Knife back home in a deluge of red hair, she turns to Clint with her true face on for the first time of the night. It’s an abrasive sort of beauty she possesses, but neither he nor she will ever know if those severe edges would’ve emerged in the vacancy of the Red Room’s resolve. 

What-ifs are for people who don’t kill other people for a living. Or in accordance with an indoctrination. 

The Widow must have decided something – what to do about all of Clint’s blood still being in his body – because she’s fast approaching the curtain. And he didn’t even get to say goodbye. 

Clint can’t help himself when he calls out, “But I didn’t get my turn!”

She spins around, half of her draped in red silk, gives Clint a once-over, and stares at the spot in his sleeve where his third favorite knife is. 

The curtain shivers. The Black Widow has left the building. 

He should leave too, what with the dead bodies and Clint being the only one alive. People will have an awfully false impression of him if he stays. With the utmost care, Clint grabs the last champagne glass, what was _his_ champagne glass, because he doesn’t know what the casino does with abandoned alcohol, but no one else needs to die tonight. 

Braced on the terrace, Clint clips himself to the line he has strung there, champagne in his right hand while his left guides the line on the way down. Clint doesn’t know how to properly dispose of deadly poison – that wasn’t offered in the circus – so he digs a hole with the heel of his shoe in the surrounding gardens and hopes for the best. 

Night air encircles him and his newly freed calluses. 

Clint’s inhale isn’t to the meter of his finger pulling a trigger. 

Neither is his exhale. 

Clint may have spared Natasha’s life when SHIELD’s eyes were watching, but Natasha spared his first – when no one was. He doesn’t often reminisce about that initial meeting with Tasha, especially since she doesn’t remember much of it, but he wonders regardless if he could’ve met her under normal circumstances in a normal universe: a woman watching a ballet, and a guy with some extra cash in his pocket. 

Though what-ifs are still for people who don’t kill other people for a living, government-sanctioned now as it may be.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's another when Clint meets...someone. It's Rumlow. It's vaguely violent. 
> 
> Also, the name "Krirsten" is shamelessly borrowed from How I Met Your Mother, ala Cobie Smulders fame.

Belarus is a hellish country. 

Clint doesn’t actually know that – he’s never been – and he’ll probably admit to himself later that it’s charming when both Rumlow and Coulson are out of his direct line of vision. 

Shockingly, and what Clint means by that is not at all, he doesn’t like Brock Rumlow, the guy has had it out for him since he first stepped into SHIELD’s hand-to-hand combat spaces with the rest of the trainees. In Rumlow’s meager defense, Clint did kick his ass, and that tends to give guys with ego problems even bigger ego problems. 

_When Clint met Rumlow_

SHIELD’s training facilities are exactly what Clint expects from a clandestine government agency with dubious sources of funding: sleek black mats, windows high on the walls, and an overall industrial warehouse ambiance that makes him nostalgic for street fighting. 

“This,” Hill deigns to speak, not looking up from her tablet, “is Agent Rumlow. He will be your hand-to-hand instructor for the foreseeable future.” 

Then with a disturbingly blank face, she says, “Should you last that long.” 

The repercussions for not meeting expectations at this stage of training are unclear, but he’s got six different exit strategies just in case SHIELD tries to black bag him or throw him in prison. 

Having been confined to interrogation rooms for the past week, and locked in the brig the week before that one, Clint’s not going to be choosy about what they’re doing in here and who they’re doing it with, particularly because the air in the space is comfortably cool, not oscillating between, _are there biomes other than the desert_ and _the tundra is not my idea of a good time_ , in an attempt to get his fingerprints from the glass of water on the interrogation room table. They don’t get them. 

But that doesn’t mean Clint neglects to make his observations. Agent Rumlow is former special forces if his posture is any indication, the sole source of pride in his life is the job, and he’s either babying a knee injury or it’s an old wound. Clint has little reservation about kicking him there should the need arise. Hard. 

Rumlow looks like what would happen if a G.I. Joe got to play real boy and his punishment for disrupting the natural order of things was not to regain his full height. The guy acts much taller than he is. 

“I don't care where you came from, if you were military, CIA, black ops,” Rumlow pauses and stares straight at Clint, “or if someone dragged your ass in off the street. Whatever you think passes for decent, doesn’t. Not anymore.”

Wow, that wasn’t subtle at all.

No, Rumlow looked down at his stupid tablet and found the name he thinks doesn’t deserve to be here, and the one he can likely get away with making an example out of. 

That’s not the end of it because Rumlow follows it up by barking out, “Barton, come get in the ring. You’ll help me do a demonstration.”

Tape’s thrown at him, and briefly, he gets lost in wrapping his knuckles, but not without noticing Fury, Hill, and Coulson standing vigil in a viewing gallery above the mats. Nothing like the unholy trinity for an audience. 

Clint’s 6’3, and when you’re as tall as he is, it’s disarming for two reasons: it’s a generally intimidating stature, and most people deduce he can’t move with the required agility to take down smaller opponents – it’s this Rumlow seems to be banking on. 

He shouldn’t be, and if Rumlow had bothered to make more than a passing judgment on Clint’s file, then he might’ve been able to form the connection between _circus_ and _acrobats_. But Clint learned a long time ago that assumptions – in his case, stupid, hick, carnie trash – can save lives, so he rarely corrects them. 

For a while after they square up, Clint’s able to evade Rumlow’s assault with only calculated steps back and ducking under furious punches, not taking advantage of any of the spaces Rumlow’s leaving open from overextending. It’s easy to see when he starts to get pissed, so Clint throws him a bone and pulls out a half-assed roundhouse kick. 

Clint’s always been fascinated by the people who think they’re hot shit because they can catch fists, feet, arrows, and other projectiles. Sure, it’s impressive, but only on the condition you don’t pause and admire your physical prowess like a fucking prick. 

Rumlow must think they’re finished because he turns to the other trainees surrounding the mat – still holding Clint’s foot – in some snide semblance of teaching and says, “Can anyone tell me why you don’t –”

In the meantime, Clint braces the foot he’s got on the ground, jumps, and with his body now spinning horizontally, nails his newly freed foot into Rumlow’s chest. 

Halfway through executing his kick and contemplating a punch to the face, Clint realizes that this is the sort of thing that could get him excised from SHIELD’s ample, heaving bosom. 

Oh well, it’s worth it. 

Hearing the telltale crack of Rumlow’s sternum as he lands nearly causes Clint to wince, but anger wins out and he takes advantage of Rumlow’s pain and unsteady feet – he kicks Rumlow’s knee, watches his arms flail, and decides a punch is the best idea he’s had in a long time, and oops, that’s the crunch of cartilage. Clint loves a broken nose when it’s not his being broken. They’re a bitch to heal, among other things. 

“Can anyone tell me why you don’t act like a fucking –” Clint snarls. 

“Barton, with me,” Fury says from his glorified vulture perch, leaving in an exit of whirling leather that would do the Matrix proud. 

By the time Clint gets to Fury’s office, the door is open, Coulson somehow beat him there, and Fury’s secretary, _Krirsten_ , is glaring at him. He thinks this is an odd place to kill someone, but Clint’s almost died in worse. 

“Have a seat,” Fury waves flippantly at the two chairs situated in front of his _I’m-the-boss_ desk. 

Coulson isn’t sitting, he’s leaning against a bookcase, and if Clint sits, he’s going to be positioned somewhat behind him, and that’s a big no-no. Though they’re waiting on him, so he does as he’s asked, but he leans his back on the armrest so he can see both of them. 

Fury sighs. “Barton, to my knowledge you didn’t have hand-to-hand combat training.” 

Clint shrugs a shoulder. Just because he prefers long-range combat, doesn’t mean he can’t handle himself up close. 

“What I’m trying to say, Agent Barton, is that we wouldn’t have put you in a beginner’s course if we had been privy to that information.” 

Frowning, Clint picks at a thread on his tac pants. It's not his fault SHIELD's interrogation teams are apparently shit. 

Fury breathes out once more. Loudly. Maybe he has allergies. “Nice punch, by the way.”

Clint chokes on his tongue and Fury’s lips twitch in triumph. Fuck. 

“Rumlow’s an ass, Barton. Don’t let him get to you,” he says, pulling out a flask from the recesses of his leather coat, taking a swig before shaking it at Clint. “Want a nip?” 

Clint does not want a nip. Clint wants to know what’s going on and why he’s not getting ganked. 

“Well, he’s certainly not going to have to deal with him now,” Coulson pipes up. “Rumlow will be off rotation for a while yet.” 

Fury chuckles. “He came back from that injury too early, serves him right that he got kicked in it.” 

Coulson and Fury keep talking and Clint takes what’s turning out to be the convenient time to have an expedited life crisis. 

He also doesn’t know why he needs to be here for this conversation, besides the whole killing thing, but they could’ve built the suspense a whole lot better. 

“Have May play with him,” he hears Fury muse to the sounds of Coulson’s agreement. 

SHIELD has in-house massage therapists; Clint supposes they could have an in-house torturer too. 

“Let’s go,” Coulson says, already halfway to the door. 

As Clint stands in the waiting area outside Fury’s office while Coulson signs them out with _Krirsten_ , he wonders if this is where he should try for an escape. Problem is, he’s on the fourth floor, and he’d have to do something about Coulson and _Krirsten_. It’d have to be something quiet too, which automatically excludes knocking their heads together…

That’s when Clint finds himself in the elevator, Coulson having stealthily guided him there without laying a finger on him. Bastard. 

He can feel Coulson’s eyes trailing over his person, not trying at all to be stealthy now, and they finally focus on his wrapped hands. 

“I think you’ll like May,” he offers cautiously.

Clint can only look at him incredulously, because what? 

Coulson appears to decide the conversation train he’s hopped on isn’t going anywhere, so he switches gears with, “Do you need to go to medical?”

“No,” Clint snaps, rubbing his taped-up hands together. 

Why would Coulson send him to medical when they’re on the way to meet this May person who could only have one possible job?

The elevator doors open to another expanse of training rooms just in time for Clint to watch a tiny little Asian woman take down a man that’s at least a foot taller than her. 

That’s how Clint meets Melinda May – the first person he ever liked in SHIELD. 

It’s not just Rumlow. Clint doesn’t like Coulson either, but it’s more complicated than pompous male posturing. He can’t read Coulson, and as someone who’s based the majority of his life on his ability to _see_ , it thoroughly unsettles him. 

Clint’s adult enough to acknowledge that his problem with Phil Coulson isn’t so much Phil Coulson himself as it is how Clint thinks of the man in question, but when the man in question reminds him so much of the rest of the people he couldn’t read – his mother, Buck, Duquesne, Barney – he can’t help but have mixed feelings. 

The thing about his mother, Buck, Duquesne, and Barney was that he couldn’t completely hate them, not when they each had given him something that changed his damn world. 

Most of the scars Clint has are from arrow fletching, a broadsword, and learning how to catch knives. He wouldn’t trade one of them. 

His mother’s name was Edith, and he learned from the fortune teller in the circus, Petronia, it came from the Old English words, ēad, meaning riches, and ġȳð, meaning war. Clint’s mother wasn’t prosperous in war, she died fighting one with his deadbeat father. He hates her as much as he loves her, which sometimes Clint thinks is worse than one or the other. 

Buck taught him how to shoot, after wandering in a field of overgrown grass, following a dull _thump, thump, thump_ noise. The rhythm settled a nameless itching in his chest even then. _Hit the bullseye and I’ll teach you how to shoot_ , Buck had taunted. Clint never understood that until he woke up lying in a ditch with Barney and Trick Shot’s arrows in his shoulder blades. Buck hadn’t wanted to teach anyone, but he would if he was impressed – that’s what the circus relied on. His eight-year-old hands fumbled with the too big bow, but he didn’t miss. 

Duquesne put a sword in Clint’s hand when he was twelve and said, _Draw blood_. He doesn’t until he’s fifteen. The sword’s like his bow, but different in the ways Clint needs it to be: They’re both an extension of his arm, but the sword teaches him footwork; they both have a tempo to their movements, but the sword has an unforgiving immediacy to it; they both saved his life, but the sword reminds him how fast it can be sliced away. 

Barney shared his green army men toys and Hot Wheels with Clint when they were six. Barney identified the mangled remains of their parents alone so he wouldn’t have to go with him. Barney broke Clint out of foster homes when they were separated. Barney brought him to the circus. Barney tried to kill him when he was twenty-one and Clint was sixteen. 

Clint doesn’t hate Coulson either, it’s more of a wariness of SHIELD in general that unfortunately started with Coulson. He probably would have felt this way about anyone who had scraped him off the street and saved his life in the long run. 

See, Coulson gave Clint something good, or at the bare minimum, something Clint thinks could be good. Just like his mother. Just like Trick Shot. Just like the Swordsman. Just like his brother. But everything Clint has eventually gets warped one way or another. 

And if Clint looks a little deeper, he’d recognize the things he dislikes about Coulson, are the same things he does to protect himself. 

The periphrastic point is: Belarus is a hellish country, except for how it isn’t, and Clint has to suffer a three-hour car ride with Coulson and Rumlow from the private airfield to a safehouse. 

Joy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More of Clint's really...interesting thought processes.

Clint’s introduction to the Budapest op starts something like this: He’s sleeping in his dorm down in the SHIELD barracks after his millionth milk run that somehow passes for a mission when Jasper Sitwell makes the worst entrance since Clint met Rumlow. 

His door bursts open to Sitwell demanding, “What the hell are you doing in here?” 

The adrenaline rush Clint experiences is so close to refreshing compared to the tame shit he’s been sent on recently that he doesn’t pull the gun he sleeps with under his pillow, nor does he stretch his foot up for the switchblade he keeps between his toes – Clint’s deceptively bendy, and he doesn’t move in his sleep from having to share beds with Barney – because he’s merciful like that. 

“Crazy enough,” Clint says languidly, stretching his body away from the temptress of slumber and her lover, warm sheets, “I live here.” 

Sitwell rolls his eyes and manages to look around his room at the same time. “Were you robbed?” he asked. 

It’s a blatantly rude question because he knows Clint wasn’t, and he would like to think Sitwell doesn’t mean it to be, but it’s only a fact that Clint’s room is startlingly empty aside from the essentials and some shitty paperbacks on his nightstand. The things Clint _needs_ , and in the end that’s a relative term too, are in the rucksack hooked to the side of his bed facing away from the door. 

Clint’s never _liked_ stuff. To begin with, he never _had_ stuff. By the time he _could_ have stuff, he learned it was a liability. It doesn’t matter how comfortable he is in a space – not that he ever has been – he won’t unpack because it’s not worth those terrifying extra seconds of trying to leave somewhere, realizing this very situation is why the few items confined to his rucksack rarely see the light of day, and deciding once again what he can live with and live without if those terrifying extra seconds run out. 

If anything, Clint thinks he’s gotten better about living at SHIELD headquarters in New York. He used to not sleep at all until Coulson threatened to send him to a sleep psychologist, which Clint didn’t know was a thing, but he guesses people can be screwed up in all kinds of ways, so psychologists are making a fucking racket. 

His own personal therapist would be proud to know, in the event that he ever talked to her beyond what was required after he gets done with his “traumatizing” assignments of stakeouts, meeting with informants, and taking his rotation with the drug detection dogs, that he’s almost convinced SHIELD won’t kill him if he messes up. So what if his bow from the circus, a set of bowie knives, three threadbare concert tees, one purple Hot Wheels car, and his copy of Loretta Chase’s _Lord of Scoundrels_ don’t get unpacked? He’s well adjusted, all things considered. 

Okay, so he does enjoy playing with the drug detection dogs when no one’s watching, but he doesn’t need Sitwell psychoanalyzing him. 

And luckily for him, Sitwell can take a hint. “I had three people page you.” 

“Yeah, I broke that.” 

“You broke…” Sitwell exhales roughly. Everyone must be going through a bout of seasonal allergies. Clint’s glad he was spared. “R&D made that pager. What could you have possibly been doing–”

Sitwell cuts himself off and rubs at his eyes under his glasses. “You know what? Never mind. Just get your ass to Conference Room 7. You’re being called up to the big leagues, kid.” 

Conference Room 7 is Clint’s least favorite room to conference in because of the sightlines. Now, it’s because Fury, Hill, Coulson, Rumlow, and Sitwell are in it too. At first, Clint thinks he’s in here for some sort of disciplinary hearing, though he can’t think of anything he’s done that they could’ve found out about. Rumlow would resort to lying if he was so inclined, but Clint’s saving grace arrives as a file folder sliding across the table. 

“The Widow Operation,” it says in an unremarkable typeface. The Black Widow is anything but unremarkable. Clint knows that much intimately. 

“Six weeks ago,” Coulson says, rifling through Clint’s folder without taking his eyes off his own to get him to the right page, “the Red Room’s most _esteemed_ Black Widow, Natalia Romanova, killed the seconds-in-command of eight bosses of the criminal underworld. Aside from their commonalities in career choice, the connections between them appear vague.”

Clint’s busy looking at the resumes of some pretty terrible people – human trafficking, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, fraud empires, extortion, mercenary and assassin syndicates, foreign and domestic espionage rings, terrorism – when Hill starts a slideshow. She’s got a clicker and everything. He wonders if it has a laser pointer. Hill looks like the kind to like scary red dots pointing at things that aren't her. 

“We have reason to believe this will be Romanova’s ‘last hurrah,’ if you will, before she’s ‘put into retirement,’” Hill says. 

Watching the few pictures they have of Romanova flip by, Clint shuts the folder and pushes it away. “So, what? You want me to kill her?” he asks.

“You’re playing with the big boys now, Barton,” Rumlow grins. 

“That’s the mission objective, Agent,” Fury grunts from where he’s radiating annoyance at the snack table. 

From the mountain of morality Coulson probably shines his designer shoes on, Clint can objectively understand why a government agency wouldn’t want a Red Room agent killing whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted, no matter how bad of people they are, but she’s practically doing their job for them. 

Clint’s carefully controlled paranoia is starting to come unhinged again. He has Level 4 clearance, and this, at minimum, is a Level 7 op if Coulson is in here. Skipping three clearances levels is unheard of, so what are they thinking? Part of Clint wants to say that his bosses respect his goddamn prowess but considering the “missions” he’s been sent on as of late, that’s reaching for a cookie jar he knows he can’t graze. The other part of Clint concedes that despite his uncanny ability to kill anyone with a projectile, or anything he can make into a projectile, the only way Clint is getting the Black Widow in his crosshairs or at the business end of his bow is if she lets him. Or if she’s tired. And she just might be from killing eight people supposedly in the name of the Red Room. 

There was at least 1.4 million dollars in uncashed chips on that poker table in Monaco. Clint would bet it all those eight dead guys had ties to the Red Room, not ties among themselves, only SHIELD doesn’t know it. This isn’t the Black Widow’s last hurrah in their honor, this is Romanova’s last hurrah for herself. The Red Room’s too calculated for a mindless killing spree, and so is she. 

It’s speculation, ultimately, but just because Clint went straight, doesn’t mean he dropped his contacts, and he knows this with tentative certainty: with the growing hesitance of even some of the dirtiest players in the game to affiliate with the Red Room, the rumor Pchelintsov’s psychotechnics research methodology had been “misplaced,” and the worse rumor that those completely fabricated memories implanted by the previous were fading in some of the most deadly, deep-cover agents in the world, the Red Room was losing their global foothold. Granted, it was slow, but it was slipping all the same. 

Natalia Romanova was out from under the Red Room’s thumb, and SHIELD was siccing Hawkeye on her ass. 

Though it all came back to the same question: Why Clint? 

He’s seen the scant footage SHIELD has of the Black Widow fighting. He’s seen her bleed – she could die by a bullet in her head or an arrow through one green eye. That’s good enough for Clint. But if it came to blows, he doesn’t know who would carry on living. She fights like she’s already soaked in the syrupy blood of victory; Clint fights like someone told him he’d die right before it. 

If SHIELD’s operating under the impression that Romanova would be “put into retirement” after whatever act they think the Red Room’s pulling on the world stage, then why go to the trouble of dispatching resources to kill her at all?

Unless SHIELD wants to get rid of a resource. 

Unless SHIELD wants to kill two birds with one stone. 

Or one bird and one spider. 

_How convenient_ , Clint thinks. He feels a pang in his chest that he never got to prove himself. 

“Why me?” Clint asks to the room at large, but only looks at Coulson. 

Coulson meets his stare with a steadiness Clint thinks he would’ve grown to appreciate had they gotten to know each other better. “I need a guaranteed shot, Specialist.”

Rumlow snorts. “There’s no such thing as–”

“Will you do it?” 

It doesn’t escape Clint that Coulson said _will_ , not _can_. For that, he _will_ take the mission. And if he’s also taking it because he knows it’ll be easier to get out from under _SHIELD’s thumb_ off American soil, well, that’s Clint’s secret to keep. 

“Sure, why not,” Clint drawls, a poor imitation of a smile pulling at his face. 

Rumlow seems to want to say something to that but Hill cuts him off. 

“Fantastic,” she says dryly. “Wheels up at 0800 hours for you three,” nodding at Coulson, Clint, and…Rumlow?

Coulson’s going to be handling, Clint’s going to be shooting, Rumlow’s going to be – 

Clint waits until it’s just Coulson and himself in the conference room to ask. 

“Why’s Rumlow going?”

The briefest silence fills the space. Most people would interpret that as any normal person simply taking their time to formulate an answer, but Agent Coulson isn’t any _normal_ person, he’s the fucking poster child for preparedness. Even Clint knows that, and Clint doesn’t know much about Coulson otherwise. 

“Agent Rumlow’s going to be shadowing me,” Coulson replies, blue eyes making direct eye contact. 

Agent Coulson is lying to him, and Clint wants a better view, a more _distant_ view, while he does it. 

“Oh?” is all Clint says as he meanders over to the snack table and takes the last Little Debbie pack of mini powdered donuts. 

Shoving two donuts in his mouth nearly makes Clint feel better about SHIELD’s elaborate murder plot against him and the guy running his first legitimate mission unabashedly lying to his face. 

Coulson smooths the sides of his jacket down as he moves to rebutton it. “He wants to expand his skill set.” 

If Coulson always sounds like he’s reading from the handbook, Clint wouldn’t know it, but this time he has control of the quiet and he takes advantage. 

Clint may not be able to read him, but he knows how to recognize the subtle tells of heightened self-awareness in those who had to work for their inscrutable mask to stick long after they moved away from the mirror because Clint was the same. Barney used to say he couldn’t lie to a brick wall, and he wasn’t wrong. Clint was able to learn the discipline of impassivity from Trick, so by the time Duquesne broke his left arm for favoring it in practice, he didn’t scream. He hasn’t screamed since his father stabbed the broken end of a beer bottle into three cracked ribs. 

He’s heard all the gossip about Coulson – robot, cyborg, pod person, android – and Clint’s admittedly started a few of his own – astral projection, hallucination maintained by SHIELD’s drugged water supply, only one half of a very scary set of twins – but when he looks at the line of Coulson’s shoulders, the nose that’s been broken at least once, his upper lip, how he clasps his hands together, the jut of his jaw, the suggestion of crow’s feet around his eyes, and the thick scar on the thin skin between his right thumb and index finger, Clint glimpses a puzzle that advertises one picture, but makes a completely different one. 

That’s all Clint can clock as he sees Coulson from a distance. 

And with the way things are shaking out, that’s likely all he ever will. 

“Well,” Clint finally says, “Isn’t that generous of you.” 

He shoves the last two donuts in his mouth and throws the packaging over his shoulder, across the table, and just under the ceiling fan into the garbage. 

“Do you know her?” Coulson asks abruptly. 

_Does anyone?_ Clint thinks. 

“No.”

_Would it have made a difference if I had?_

_Would you still send me to kill her?_

_If you didn’t, would you all find some other way to off me?_

All Coulson does is hum and exit with a swift, “Tomorrow then, Barton.” 

_Why’d you bring me in if you knew it was going to end this way?_

Like Sitwell, Clint would like to think Coulson had better intentions than that. 

But Clint’s not one for walking down roads paved with good intentions. He knows where they lead. Chances are, he’s going there anyway. 

Tomorrow then.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Chapter 1, there were eight unofficial reasons why Budapest was the best and worst op in SHIELD’s history. Reason 5 was, “Clint overheard a phone call he really shouldn’t have.” Due to the shitty logistics of having someone overhear a phone call, I’ve changed it to, “Clint overheard a conversation he really shouldn’t have, or should have. Depends on who you ask.” This part of the fic is essentially founded on Clint’s overthinking – which from tactical and survival standpoints is well justified, especially considering his life history – general misunderstanding, and Clint being an unreliable narrator. Things come to a head with Rumlow, Coulson, and Clint, and _some_ things are revealed. But the big explanations from the perspectives of multiple characters are farther out. I hope it’s not too anticlimactic. As for if it’s cliché, it’s adjacent.

Clint’s never worked with Coulson before, what with the very large discrepancy between their respective clearance levels – somehow Clint still has to give his paperwork to Coulson, so he sees him somewhat regularly – but in the eight and a half minutes he’s been riding in this shitty 1992 beige Lada Samara with him and Rumlow, he’s decided that Coulson is like a vengeful spirit, and not even the fun ones that fling your furniture everywhere, he’s a passive-aggressive one that doesn’t tell you he’s only slightly moved your furniture, and when he finally does admit to it, he tells you he moved everything an inch to the left, but it was really an inch to the right all along. 

Coulson could say, “Boo” in an entirely level voice and scare the hair off virtually anyone, at least that’s what Clint thinks happened to Sitwell’s. 

The best thing about Coulson being a passive-aggressive poltergeist with an affinity for sartorial decisions is that it’s kept Rumlow cowed for the past eight and a half minutes. Clint hasn’t known peace in Rumlow’s presence since he broke his nose, fractured his sternum, and redislocated his knee. 

Too bad Clint’s permanent affliction of being an asshole when he’s uncomfortable – or comfortable – makes an appearance. And if he’s also discovered that knowing these people want to kill him to be a bit liberating for his behavioral choices, then no one else needs to know that but him. Loyalty is a concept Clint was never afforded, Coulson and Rumlow sure as hell aren’t getting his. 

Rumlow’s in the passenger seat while Coulson drives and talks to Hill on the phone about something Clint doesn’t care to pay attention to. He would be a little more petulant about being sequestered to the back of the car if it wasn’t prime real estate for whispering in Rumlow’s ear. 

“Didn’t take you for the ‘handling’ type, Rumlow,” Clint says, voice hushed. “What with those god-awful interpersonal scores on your leadership eval.”

Clint hasn’t seen Rumlow’s file, but no harm in implying it – for Clint. 

“They’ll make anyone a member of Strike, huh?” 

No reaction. 

“The prereqs _are_ having the social skills of a wet firework, being as emotionally repressed as Rollins, and having a stick shoved so far up your ass anyone could see it down your throat.”

Clint hears the strain of car upholstery while he watches the tick of Rumlow’s ridiculous jaw. 

_Gotcha_ , Clint thinks. 

“So, I guess you fit right in,” he finishes, leaning back in his seat. Satisfied. 

Coulson’s done with his phone call and Clint can feel his eyes on him through the rearview mirror. 

It’s looking like a great time for Clint to take a nap, or pretend to, he’s got his third favorite knife in his sleeve if anyone wants to try anything. His eight and half minutes of peace are up, and he’s got two hours and fifty-two minutes left in this hell chariot. 

More importantly, Clint has plans to set into motion.

Clint finds out by way of the car window and his guidebook aptly titled, _Belarus_ , that over 40% of the country is forested, with the birch, pine, and conifer trees even interwoven in the urban landscapes. He’s enamored by the intensity of the green. Having grown up in Iowa and the circus predominantly keeping its travels to the Midwest, he’s accustomed to flat fields, shades of brown, and hot pavement. Once he started taking jobs and traveling, his appreciation for his surroundings didn’t extend beyond what was in his scope and whether he was in someone else’s. But he’s always liked trees. There was a grove of bur oaks off the farmland his family lived on where Clint honed his climbing skills, among other things – his drunk excuse for a father couldn’t get him while he was balancing on branches, the smell of spilled booze and blood couldn’t linger in his nose when he was wrapped up in earthy aromas, and he liked to use his slingshot to nail Barney in the head with acorns. It was later that Clint would gleefully learn bur oaks have the largest acorns of all native oaks. 

Their business, as rumors and slightly dubious intel have steered them, is in Minsk. Though Clint feels better about his personal contacts than SHIELD’s “reason to believe,” he still couldn’t be absolutely certain which way the Widow is running: toward Russia, or very far away from it. Clint knows from experience that trust can get you killed just as often as distrust. But the peril of not trusting the people around you is running out of reasons to trust yourself. The country they’re in doesn’t help either. With its political reputation coined by some Western journalists as “Europe’s last dictatorship,” the proximity to Russia, and an alleged Red Room facility, Belarus is either strategic, suicidal, or somehow relevant to a part of the Widow’s master plan neither SHIELD nor Clint are privy to. 

The safehouse in the Partyzanski District is vastly nicer than the majority of places Clint’s ever stayed in, which isn’t saying a whole lot because he was impressed by the SHIELD barracks for a short time, but it’s clean, the sightlines are decent, and it’s a direct shot to the city center. Clint’s almost done hauling his equipment up to the apartment and has just come back down to retrieve his bow case when he suddenly finds himself thoroughly acquainted with Rumlow’s chest, a brick wall, and a forearm against his neck. Despite the fact that Clint is more than halfway to stabbing him, he can’t help but be amused by how Rumlow has to stand on the tips of his toes to reach. It’s definitely taking the “intimidation” out of “intimidation tactic.” 

Aw, sweaty forearm, _no_ , Clint thinks. 

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Barton,” Rumlow sneers. 

Clint feels like he’s in a subpar action movie and he doesn’t even get to be the sexy blonde on the hood of a car. “Dunno,” he grins, “I’m sure having fun with it.” 

Rumlow’s forearm presses down harder and Clint’s third favorite knife gets that much closer to his spleen. It’s a shame it’s not a vital organ. 

“Kid, I don’t have to hit you to ruin your damn life. You may have Coulson and Fury fooled, but I know an unstable, insubordinate jackass when I see one,” Rumlow spits. 

Then quieter, “You’re a traitor in the making, Barton. Pretending to be anything else is wasting the rest of your short, pathetic life.” 

Clint hears heavy breathing and he’s pissed when he realizes it’s his. Rumlow doesn’t deserve to know he’s gotten under Clint’s skin. So he inventories everything sensory he can process to calm himself down – cold kisses of snow flurries, oddly smooth brick at his back, the smell in the air before it storms, sweaty forearm, the rumble of a tram. 

There’s no convincing Rumlow of anything apart from who he already thinks Clint is, and in his regularly unscheduled self-esteem nosedives, Clint knows that what he’s saying isn’t completely untrue, but that’s not going to stop him from provoking Rumlow anyway. 

“Sounds like I have the right people wrapped around my short, pathetic finger then,” Clint says, tapping a finger on Rumlow’s choking arm with his free hand. 

Rumlow snorts. “You think Fury’s the biggest boss man? That he’s at the top?” 

He takes an impossible step closer to Clint and hisses. Clint pointedly looks down at his third favorite knife now partially embedded in Rumlow. At best, it’s half a centimeter in, but he’s now learning on the job to embrace his “traitorous” ways. 

“I think,” Clint says, using the voice he has for talking to that large sect of bad guys who think they’re more powerful than they actually are, “you and I have reached an impasse. No?”

Rumlow’s still looking down at the knife but manages a jerky nod. 

“Great,” Clint says with false cheerfulness. 

He proceeds to pull his knife out of Rumlow, wipe the blade on Rumlow’s shirt, pick up his bow case, and walk back upstairs to the apartment. 

Clint’s sitting on a couch that’s the most offensive shade of green he thinks could possibly exist without someone filing charges for reckless endangerment when Coulson asks him if he has any contacts in the city. He doesn’t. 

He takes a sip of some pretty awesome safehouse coffee and says, “Yep.” 

Coulson looks surprised, if an eyebrow twitch and swallowing normally is his version of surprised. “Fantastic. I can discreetly shadow your meetings while Agent Rumlow makes contact with SHIELD’s informants in the city.” 

Serious amounts of money would be thrown around so he never has to hear the word _shadow_ again. 

Rumlow’s as far away from Clint as he can get and still be in the same room. He’s proud he knows how to put the “intimidation” in “intimidation tactic,” unlike some people. 

“I’m afraid that’s a no can do, Sir,” Clint sighs, trying to sound put out. “I just can’t risk you being seen. My contacts are…skittish.” 

Sure, that seems like a believable scenario.

Maybe _this_ is Coulson’s surprised face. Or he’s offended. Fuck, Clint’s supposed to be better than this. 

“Specialist,” Coulson says slowly, “I can assure you I know how to be inconspicuous.” 

Clint doesn’t doubt that – Coulson has the alarming ability to switch between unassuming and unapologetically noticeable at will – but if he wants to be able to survey the city in peace should escape become an unavoidable conclusion, then he needs to be alone. 

“It’s not a question of your skills, Sir. But I can’t burn an information line like that. People talk. You know how it is,” Clint replies, setting down his coffee cup and turning his body fully toward Coulson. 

Coulson appears to be thinking about a handful of things at once, then he shuffles a few papers around on the living room table, and liberally applies new post-it page markers before putting Clint on the receiving end of an intense stare. It’s feasible he has looks other than intense stares, but he wouldn’t bet 1.4 million dollars on it. 

“Acknowledged, Barton. But you _will_ check-in between meetings,” Coulson orders. 

Clint’s positive Coulson only concedes to his wishes because _he knows_ that _Clint knows_ he caught him in a lie yesterday about Rumlow’s involvement in this op. But Clint’s not picky, so he gives a half-assed salute and goes to make a few fake phone calls. 

The red letters on top of the two buildings framing the World War II memorial in Victory Square say, “Heroic deed of the people is immortal.” Clint knows he’s not a hero, he’s not _that_ delusional, but he has to wonder if killing the Black Widow is a “deed of the people.” By SHIELD logic, now that Romanova has killed the right-hand men of eight major crime bosses, she’ll turn her sights to those in command while they’re incensed and adapting to a shifted hierarchy. To Clint, it makes sense, though the reality is, SHIELD logic and Black Widow logic and Red Room logic don’t often intersect. Unless the Widow wants to die, she won’t be standing in an open city square like this, or anywhere else ranged weapons are appropriate. His earlier theory that this is Romanova’s last hurrah for herself wouldn’t put it past her to make herself a target to a government sniper on the condition she’s done all she wants to do – i.e., kill another eight men. The intel SHIELD had on the dead seconds-in-command was dated, and Clint doesn’t know the present status of the bosses, so whether Romanova’s ready to “retire” is up in the air. Either way, Clint isn’t inclined to kill someone who saved his life first, and who is technically doing the same things he gets paid for. But if he sees her, and death is what she wants after all this time, _who is he_ not to give it to her? 

Circumstances do get more interesting when he’s passing the National Opera and Ballet of Belarus on the way back from getting the lay of the land and he swears he sees a streak of red among spitting snow and white stone. 

Clint returns to the sounds of Rumlow and Coulson arguing. From the way they _really_ don’t stop, they haven’t heard him come in. His person is blocked by a convenient loadbearing wall, so he creeps up close to listen. 

“I’m a good shot, Coulson. He’s unnecessary,” Rumlow says. 

Coulson snorts. Or breathes loudly. “I don’t need good. I need extraordinary. And if we’re going to talk about whose presence is wholly unnecessary here, you’ll find I won’t agree with you, to say the least.” 

“We’ve already had this conversation, Coulson. With the WSC no less. He’s a security risk and you’re too valuable to the higher-ups to lose.” 

“I don’t appreciate the implication I can’t handle myself, Agent,” Coulson says, tone flinty. 

“You saw what he did to me, the guy’s a psycho.”

“He gave you a glorified paper cut and reminded you why you don’t step on the mats with a healing injury.”

“Coul –”

“The last time I checked, _Agent_ Rumlow, I’m still your superior despite whatever you think you’re going to have to do here. Remember that.” 

Rumlow mumbles out a “Yes, Sir.” 

“What was that?” 

_“Yes, Sir.”_

Coulson’s footsteps are headed for the kitchen and with Clint’s head full of that sound staticky TVs make, it’s not all his fault that he takes his own step back onto a part of the floor he had previously cataloged as “so fucking squeaky it puts Donald Duck to shame.” 

“Barton?” Coulson calls. 

Clint braces his hand on the wall and pushes his foot back into the door so it closes with an audible click. 

“Yeah?” he says back, banging his boots together like he’s knocking off snow stuck in the tread. 

“Learn anything?”

Walking to the kitchen gives Clint time to pull a story out of his ass. And, as everyone knows, the best lies are the ones that have a little truth to them. 

“One of my contacts saw someone matching Romanova’s description around the opera and ballet theater. She might have connections or business around there. It’s worth looking into.”

This may be Coulson’s proud face – eyes slightly crinkled and lips not in a thin line. “Tell me more, Specialist.”

Clint can’t help but feel sick. 

So maybe SHIELD wasn’t conspiring to kill him. They just thought he was going to kill someone else. That someone else being Agent Coulson. 

Rumlow was here to put him down if he tried anything. 

Like most things in Clint’s life, that conversation wasn’t something he wanted to hear, but maybe he needed to hear it all the same.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you do when it rains?”
> 
> The captain answered frankly. 
> 
> “I get wet.”

The ugliest couch in existence is as good a place as any to have a life-changing dilemma. It’s as if green velvet is the answer to any interrogation, the ones you have with yourself included. Squally skies had quickly succumbed to nightfall after Clint finished lying his ass off to Coulson, so here he is, alone with his thoughts about what to do next, and staring at a knot in the wood on the ceiling that looks like if Batman and a melting popsicle had a secret love child. Combined with the guttering remnants of the fire in the stove, the mood is set for Clint to freak out. _Tactically_. He’s a professional, mostly. 

Clint’s made harder decisions in his years than the one presently sitting on his chest, but in all the scenarios he imagined about leaving SHIELD, Phil Coulson wasn’t a tally in the stay column, he wasn’t a tally at all. Until now. He can count on two fingers the number of people who have ever stood up for him: one of them is dying, and the other is asleep fifty feet away from him. Leaving would mean proving Rumlow right and knowing he owes Coulson _something_ – if not his life. Understanding the difficulty of his choice comes down to his hold on potentialities – Coulson being different than his other handlers, him doing well on this mission, SHIELD as the place for him to catch his breath – and that awareness isn’t accompanied by ease. Some sharks have to swim constantly in order to breathe. Some sharks don’t. Clint knows which kind he is. Running is second nature, survival. Running away from an agency that doesn’t trust him not to kill his own handler, that’s just common sense. 

He moves with the confidence of a man who has contingency plans. Stretching for his bow case and duffle at the foot of the couch, Clint happens to see Rumlow’s boots in the entryway before the door, he’ll snag them after he goes to the kitchen. The third drawer he tries has a pen and pad of paper crammed in the back. Coulson’s note says “Sorry” with a face caught between a smile and a frown drawn next to it that goes in his coat pocket. Rumlow’s says “Kiss your knobby fucking kneecaps goodbye,” and Clint shoves it down into the toe of his boot. With everything stuffed in his duffle, he heads for the east-facing window that’s farthest from the bedrooms. The silent alarm on the frame gets disabled first, then the alarm that the silent alarm’s been tripped, and finally the actual _someone’s opening the window_ alarm. Clint waves farewell to the cameras he’s not going to try to incapacitate, fondly thinks of the Donald Duck floorboard, and scales the building two floors to the street below. But there’s one more thing he has to do before he goes: he ties Rumlow’s bootlaces together until he achieves the _get new shoes_ level of disaster and throws them right on the edge of a nearby rooftop. And that is a Clint Barton sendoff if he does say so himself. 

Clint’s sat on the musty carpet of the fourth hotel he’s checked into with his own cash, a first aid kit, a burner phone, a bowie knife, a box of hair dye, and a bottle of vodka at his feet. The clerk at the corner store had looked at his purchases with a look that was a cross between mild trepidation and intrigued jealousy. He’s had that look only once when the fire dancers at the circus were doing an act with miniature horses, confetti-filled balloons, and ABBA’s _Arrival_ for the soundtrack. 

SHIELD would get suspicious if he was using his company card at a little after midnight, not to mention it’s probably bugged in general. That left Clint dipping into his _you’ve fucked up cash fund_ and digging out the tracker in his right forearm after soaking it and the bowie knife in Belarusian vodka. Once it’s out – and not a drop of blood spilled on the already dodgy carpet – he doesn’t break it, but he does pry the ones out of his bow, SHIELD-issued boots, and his quiver. The arrows themselves have visible serial numbers near the fletching, but no sign of any surveillance. Just to appease his healthy paranoia, he sacrifices an arrow to the wiles of his knife and cracks open the carbon fiber shaft. Nothing. If SHIELD is going to pay attention to a single tracker, it’ll be the one that was in his arm. They’ll expect him to ditch the others, but if he keeps that one and the tracker from his bow together, they could follow the digital signature for as long as he needs to get the hell out of Belarus. 

Emerging from the bathroom a beautiful brunet, Clint reaches to the bottom of his duffle for his hidden rucksack and boots, changes clothes – muted colors, but purple Henley – and maneuvers his quiver into the newly freed space; the bow is collapsible to the length of his hand, so he’s worried a little less about jostling explosive arrowheads and blowing himself up. He can reevaluate his packing situation once he isn’t looking over his shoulder. 

Duquesne had taught him that the key to blending in wasn’t baggy hoodies, baseball caps, and an abundance of black, it was finding the sweet spot on the spectrum of memorability. Attention is like anything else: if you’re going to get it, best make sure you get the good kind. Nothing was worse than trying too hard not to get noticed being exactly what got you noticed, which meant ill-fitting clothes, most hats, and _don’t look at me_ colors were beacons for the wrong kind of attention. Clint already gets enough long looks for his height, he doesn’t need to give the public anything else to latch onto if SHIELD starts knocking. 

And with what Clint’s already half-convinced himself of doing, they’ll eventually be on his ass anyway. 

The Minsk-Pasažyrski railway station is a touch of modernity – all windows, stainless steel, clean lines – framed by Stalinist architecture, the interior coated with the telltale sticky heat of moving bodies. Clint is currently one of those bodies, rushing down the main hall of the hub like he’s trying to make a departure time. In actuality, he’s casing passengers to leave his trackers with. He’s debating the merits of the standard pickpocket method, but in reverse – brushing past someone – or lingering on a specific platform so he knows the trackers are leaving Belarus and going to another big European city when he sees a finely dressed woman with an unbelievably large purse facing toward the 023/024 train heading for Paris. Clint glides behind her with the calm of experience resting in the soles of his feet, palming his cargo and imperceptibly slowing his stride to make the drop-off. On the way out, he’s caught in a crowd of college backpackers taking up the entirety of a stairwell – the trackers from his boots and quiver are deposited in expensive hiking gear with no one the wiser, security cameras included. 

Clint books it to the outskirts of the Zavodski District before he takes the burner cell out of his pocket. He’s got it in his head that he’s going to go after the Black Widow. No end in mind. No burning motivation either. If his incentive is secretly repaying Coulson on his own terms, then he can just keep that buried under the mountains of denial he also uses to justify his continued ownership of one purple Hot Wheels car because he’s practical like that. But if he’s going to tail a notorious assassin, even with no grand finale planned, he’s still going to need intel. A supposed Red Room facility in Belarus is the place to get it. The issue is that he hasn’t kept up on Eastern Europe’s intelligence codes since _the incident_ a few years ago. Certain libraries and secondhand bookstores in the US had copies of Joseph Heller’s _Catch-22_ with the encrypted names of people and places that would talk for a price. 

The only person Clint knows who may stay up on Eastern Europe’s intelligence codes, or at least remember some old ones, is a phone call away. He dials. 

“Buena Vista Regional Medical Center, how may I help you?” 

God, Clint hates hospitals. He’s getting hives from here. “Uh, yeah. Hi. Could I talk to a patient in your long-term care ward?” 

“Please hold while I transfer you.” There’s a long pause before another click. 

A harried older woman answers. “This is Ruth.” 

He swallows and shifts his weight in the cold. “Could I speak to Petro –”

“You must be _Clinton_ ,” she snorts. 

“How did you –”

The smile is in her voice when she says, “You’re all she talks about.” 

“You’ve caught her on a very good day,” she continues to the clack of steps on hospital linoleum. 

There are shuffling sounds and a brief period of static that makes Clint wince and then – 

“Clinton Francis,” Petronia admonishes, “you said you’d call more.” 

Well, Clint didn’t need whatever’s in his chest cavity to pump blood through his body anyway. “Shit, I’m sorry, I –”

“It’s no bother, dear. Ask me how I am.” 

He laughs wetly. “How are you, P?” 

Petronia scoffs. “Where are your manners, Clinton? I’m dying. How the hell do you think I am?”

 _Back in the 80s probably_ , Clint thinks. 

“Are you in pain?” he whispers. 

She pauses to cough. It’s somehow dry and wet at the same time. “No, dear. You’ve made sure of that. Though I’ve made my own bed, haven’t I?” 

Before Petronia became the fortune teller for the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders, she was a spy for the Dutch underground resistance during World War II. She killed two Nazis with her bare hands. And she smoked more than a fucking chimney. 

“Think nearly everybody does,” he says.

“Are you saying I’m not special?” 

“The most,” he chokes out. 

Petronia Calimeris was also the only person he would gladly admit that he loved. 

“You sound like you’re running away again, Clinton.” 

The fond exasperation Clint feels almost knocks him over. He stares out at the straggling lights of a small city instead. “That doesn’t have a sound.”

“Of course it does. I’m a psychic. You can trust me,” she argues. 

“Yeah? What’s my future lookin’ like?” 

“Believe it or not, dear, you’re going in the right direction. You have a funny way of circling back when you need to.” 

He exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Now,” she says, all business, “you didn’t just call to bother an old woman, did you?” 

“Was wondering if you remembered Eastern Europe’s old intel codes.” 

She hums. “The last ones I knew were the nightcap sequences.”

“Thanks, P.” 

“Those are outdated,” she warns. “But if you go to a decrepit enough place, you may get lucky.”

Clint chuckles. He and _lucky_ in the same sentence. 

“Do you know the exact moment I _knew_ you were different than you brother?” Petronia asks suddenly. 

“No,” he says quietly as if Barney could hear him. 

“It was that day the sky practically opened up and everyone was bitching about the rain whilst we broke down the tent.”

Besides the rain, all he can recall was the burn of his arms from Trick’s brutal new shooting regimen.

“Must’ve been eight years old. Head tipped back, and that crazy hair of yours going every possible way,” she snickers. “You hadn’t smiled before right then.” 

Two years after leaving home that he first smiled at the circus. 

She sobers. “I felt as if I was seeing the best day of your life.”

It might’ve been, at the time. Maybe still is. 

“I remember hoping that wouldn’t be your best day. I remember the relief I felt when I read in the cards that it wouldn’t be.”

Furiously wiping tears from his eyes with his free hand, Clint taps the heel of his boot on the pavement and listens to the snick of the switchblade release at the toe. 

“I expected you to be as angry as your brother. You had every right with the cards you’d been dealt. But you were still so…steady, as young as you were.” 

He is angry, but he knows what she means. Barney let something, be it anger, jealousy, hatred, or a combination of all three eat at him. Clint wouldn’t let those feelings win. He just felt them and tried to move on. 

“I’m gonna come visit, before you…I just have to take care of some things,” he confesses. 

“See that you do, Clinton. I’ll be counting the days,” she says dryly. 

“You ever gonna call me Clint?” he laughs. 

If he shuts his eyes, he can picture her smirk on magenta lips. “When you visit.” 

“Alright,” he sighs. “I have to –”

“Oh, and dear? That darling man chasing you? Let him catch up soon. This hard-to-get business is unbecoming.” 

“Petronia!” 

She’s smug when she says it’s in the cards.

The bar he slips into is situated in an area that’s a bizarre cross between factory sector and declining residential. While it may not be falling apart at the seams, Clint’s encouraged by the presence of a vintage jukebox alone, but the brick that looks naturally distressed, checkered floors, dark wood, and historical city plans mounted on the wall aren’t deterring him either. He pulls out some rubles and checks the bar’s sightlines and exits as he walks along creaking floors to get the first drink of many. There are only four people in the room, including the bartender – one grayish man who looks to be a slight breeze from passing out, and the other two, a local young couple talking in hushed Belarusian in a booth losing its stuffing. 

“пить?” the bartender asks. 

She’s got long white hair close to brushing her waist, a gaze that would make Petronia proud, and a heavy fucking pour. 

He orders a Devil’s Handshake, an Imperial Fizz, and a Colt 45. The fourth and final drink will be brought out by the bartender unprompted if the code still works. The glasses aren’t as cool in his hand as he thought they would be, indicative of the temperatures he came in from, but be bides his time sliding his callouses on one of the few surfaces the rough skin won’t catch until it’s been long enough that approaching the jukebox and the dead potted plant on the window sill behind it doesn’t seem blatantly purposeful. To civilians, anyway. It’s not like the alcohol’s going to kill what’s already gone. 

All of the songs are written in Cyrillic script except for one – the name’s been worn away, and since Petronia hadn’t gone former scary spy on him and demanded no music during his communications via booze, he’s going to go with his absolutely never failing, always successful _why the hell not?_ attitude. 

If Clint didn’t know any better, he’d say the song trickling out of the jukebox’s tinny speakers sounds like a disturbing homage to the Itsy Bitsy Spider despite it solely being a whiny instrumental of what could be a violin, but his string of drink orders must have gotten the bartender’s attention, should he go by the way she disappears into the back. 

More realistically, he’s probably hallucinating from the dye job earlier in the evening. Beauty is pain, Clint pretends to understand that. And so is brown hair apparently. 

The atmosphere around him has shifted, and the metaphorical prey of the room – the couple and old man – appear to have taken notice, the former with a hasty exit hailed by the bell on the entrance door, and the latter has snored himself awake, making valiant attempts to remove ass from chair. It’s not going to happen, but Clint wishes him and his impressive beard the best. He could really stand to grow a beard himself, considering the second international manhunt he’s about to start. Though the early stages of growing facial hair could be dangerous because they draw attention to bone structure not yet completely concealed…

Another glass hitting the bar top refocuses him, this one with a tiny cocktail umbrella, and the bartender giving him a severe stare down her long nose. This is _not_ the service with a smile Clint definitely wasn’t expecting in Belarus at two in the morning. She’s left again by the time he’s picking the cocktail umbrella out of the glass and appeasing his oral fixation by messing with the stem from the lone maraschino cherry. The rest of the Old-Fashioned goes to his bearded friend still fighting his chair, and for the third time in the span of a few hours, he’s enveloped by the frosty winter air. 

An address is carefully penned onto the delicate paper of the cocktail umbrella. He memorizes it and then grabs his lighter. 

It’s to a paper mill. Clint doesn’t like paper mills. Or warehouses. Or docks. They’re on par with alleys for the degree of regularity that bad shit happens in. The building is wrapped up tight with a padlock, and he has no doubt he could pick the lock, but he only has the emergency picks in his false tooth, and he’s not in the mood to break anything in his mouth right now. Climbing a stack of precariously positioned crates, he peers into a window and is almost disappointed when he doesn’t see the cliché dead body under the single lightbulb hanging from a swinging wire. Instead, a small army of boxes is assembled in a jagged strip of moonlight from…above.

 _Aw, broken skylight, yes,_ he thinks. 

After some impressive feats of acrobatics and not braining himself on the mill’s rafters and/or metal machinery, Clint joins the small army of boxes to think about his life choices and weep for the Belarusian paper industry. What hellish kind of intel would be in here? Is he supposed to wait for an informant? Is _he_ going to be the cliché dead body under the nonexistent single lightbulb hanging from a swinging wire? He sighs as he stabs one of his box buddies with his third favorite knife because there are always causalities in war, and he will not die today. 

Wait. Those are newspapers popping out of the gash in the cardboard he made. Pulling the box closer, he uses his hand to rip the opening wider, and damn, they’re old, the paper in surprisingly good condition – yellowing but flexible. Maybe his absent tears for the Belarusian paper industry were unnecessary. 

_Nuclear Plant Accident._

_Last Romanov Abdicates._

_Yuri Gagarin’s Space Flight._

_The Deadly Shelling of the Russian Parliament._

Because Clint is a sometimes believer in hostile coincidences, he picks up the _Last Romanov Abdicates_ newspaper. The lack of sleep and the small-print Cyrillic is going to give him a migraine, so he sticks to the titles and subheadings. Seven pages in is when he sees it: _Girls’ School Closes After 70 Years of Service._

“Closed my ass,” Clint murmurs, stuffing the paper in his jacket pocket. He has to get to the eastern outskirts of the Zavodski District before sunrise. It won’t be long now, but the cloudy winter skies may have bought him some precious time. 

For a Red Room facility, the exterior is striking without being overwhelmingly eye-catching – sharp angles, steep roof, gray stone, arched windows, common ivy, sparse spruce trees. It pays for him to take notice of architecture. Life or death shots get made on rooftops, and if he chooses the wrong one – not that he ever has, he doesn’t miss – to shoot from or use as an exit strategy, kills are less clean and _life or death_ starts to apply to him too, more so than it would have. He won’t scale the building and go in through a window. Instinct screams at him that someone’s already been here and he’s not going to break his back over stealth. 

So he tries the front door with the hideous wolf knocker. Clint’s not feeling lucky even though it opens on silent hinges. Strapping his quiver to his leg and readying his bow, the carbon fiber sleek but gripping in his right hand, he tiptoes down a marble hallway until he reaches a mahogany staircase. The cameras are in obvious places, easily visible and ensuring no blind spots – it’s the kind of place where they’d want you to know you were being watched – but the recording lights are out, and the wires have been recently cut judging by their edges. He’s under no delusions that there aren’t backup recording methods or smaller, undetectable cameras, but he’s not going to take chances with the ones he _can see_ , and that means his paper folding skills are about to come in handy. Ominous Newspaper #2 gets transformed into sixteen paper airplanes, and as he starts hauling ass through the facility, he lobs them at the top of the cameras to catch in their frames, effectively blocking the lenses. 

_Chilling_ only begins to describe this building masquerading as a school. He guesses, in some twisted sense, people did learn things here. Sure, there’s the unsubtly creepy shit (see the operating rooms, the handcuffs still stuck to some bed frames, the rusty hues on a ballet bar), but it’s the smaller details that fuck with him the most because sometimes imagination is worse than reality, though the realities of the Red Room likely transcend that wisdom. What’s crawling up his spine with the coldest fingers is the painted over nail marks on door frames, the thinnest sliver of glass missing from a mirror, how every exit is preceded by an unnecessarily long hallway, and the eight elegant handprints disrupting fine layers of dust. He’d blow it all up if it wouldn’t attract attention he really doesn’t need. 

Clint’s in what he thinks is the lowest level of the facility but is proven wrong when he discovers the metal door with a wheel hatch that reminds him of a submarine. Twisting the wheel, he thinks of his current mantra as of twenty minutes ago: _“You will not die here – this isn’t funny_ at all _and you aren’t having sex.”_ And yes, there’s the descending staircase lit by fluorescent lights. The lights he’s somewhat thankful for because now he doesn’t have to pick between nocking an arrow or holding his lighter or nocking an arrow and trying to hold his lighter between his teeth. 

Moving down the stairs, arrow ready, and lips not burnt, he reconciles the fact that his preferred ways to die – hilarious circumstances and/or having sex – probably aren’t going to happen considering his lifestyle – 

He jumps the last seven stairs, lands in a somersault, and comes up shooting. The arrow’s lodged in the silhouette’s head and…that’s a chair. Oops. Granted, it’s not a nice-looking chair, to say the least. It’s out of a deranged dentist’s wet dreams and he’s not even sorry. Lights controlled by motion sensors continue to come on as he moves farther into the room and he does not want to know the kind of shit that went on in here as he steps over a drain in the floor on his way to a bank of computers. He will also not think about how some asshole was sitting in this ergonomic chair in front of these computers while someone else was being tortured not ten feet away. 

The computer stares at him. Clint stares back. This computer doesn’t have to know his hacking skills are subpar at best. He’s a master assassin. A master archer. He has swords for different occasions. He can out-disguise most anyone. He can make a projectile weapon out of anything. His elbow bumps the mouse. 

_Would you like to continue your session?_

Fuck yes Clint would like to continue his session. 

With the computer’s server copied onto a very conveniently found thumb drive, he’s diplomatically decided he’s had enough of Belarus for a lifetime. 

It’s in the courtyard he’s cutting through to leave the facility’s premises that he finds the dead body draped across a fountain. Aw, murder, no. Well, no murder at, _fuck_ , five a.m. The sun is close to breaking the horizon and the cloud cover, which is not a lot of time to get the fuck out of Belarus for the foreseeable _and_ unforeseeable future. 

If Clint stays where he is, he could convince himself that Arturo Valentini, head of one of the greatest fraud empires in Southern Europe, died from exposure. Since he doesn’t stay where he is, he can see the gaping wound in Valentini’s neck and the fancy piece of cardstock sticking out of it. He wonders why Romanova seems to have a thing for slitting throats. For some reason, he didn't think that was her signature move. Knives are messy, intimate, meaning that these eight crime bosses must have personally slighted her and killing their seconds-in-command wasn’t adequate retribution. 

Though there’s no real use in psychoanalyzing the Black Widow, especially after he reads the fancy piece of cardstock. 

Oh, how charming. She made death invitations. They’re classy too. He can appreciate that the _you are cordially invited to_ is engraved above the set of coordinates he would bet are right where he’s standing. But that doesn’t help Clint pinpoint where the Black Widow is going next, and he won’t download the Red Room server he copied on some public computer. 

He sighs, tapping the card against his arm and catches a flash of gold from the corner of his eye. With a sick fascination, Clint holds the card up to the rising sun, a runny orange in the early morning glare. 

_A crow will never be a falcon,_ he reads in previously indiscernible writing and his sense of dread settles heavily in his gut. He only knows that’s a Ukrainian proverb from one of his first jobs after leaving the circus that he would later refer to as _the incident._

That was the job where Clint’s first and second favorite knives were taken. And shit, he’s all grown up now and he wants them back. He can go to Ukraine, hit his safe house there, _get his babies back_ , and be right on schedule to happen upon another one of Romanova’s death parties uninvited. 

If he manages to avoid Coulson until he’s possibly repaid him and maim Rumlow’s kneecaps too, then he’s just. That. Good. 

One down, seven to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me hell. But it's longer. So I guess that's good. I've also realized this is looking like a slow burn...sorry.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For some incredibly irritating reason, the chapters I actually have planned out take longer to write.

_What happened in Ukraine: 1980-something_

Let it be known that Clint Barton is not an art thief. But also let it be known that if Clint Barton needs the money, then he will be an art thief. Hell, if Clint Barton needs the money, there’s only three things he wouldn’t do. 

If he wanted to get deeper about it – which he rarely ever does – he would know it’s not about the money. It’s about what the money represents. Money means security. It means a roof over his head. It means food that isn’t from dumpsters, scavenged from restaurants, or stolen. 

So fresh out of the hospital, a little money in his pocket and all healed up from two arrows in his shoulder blades, a broken leg, and cracked to hell ribs, he’s in need of work, even though the sting of betrayal begs for revenge. But his marketable skills leave him few options. His “traditional education” doesn’t go beyond the third grade, and while Petronia was the one to help him finish learning to read, and more importantly, the one who taught him most of the languages he knows, Clint’s understanding of the world is unique, to put it generously. 

To him, science is blowing shit up and knowing what isn’t going to poison him, math is an intuitive understanding of angles when he shoots, and according to all the TV he’s watched for the past nine months, his lack of knowledge on hedge funds is really going to screw him come the next fiscal year. 

That leaves him with stripper, customer service, or mercenary. As much as Clint would lick his own abs if he could, his scars and the touching that come with stripping are a no-go. Customer service is out too since he’s in what he assumes to be the _I hate everyone_ stage all seventeen-year-olds go through. Mercenary it is. 

Trick was a mercenary before joining the circus. Not that he wants to follow in his ex-mentor’s fucked-up footsteps, but Clint remembers a drunken conversation where Trick was lamenting about how fat his bank account would be if he was still taking jobs in Ukraine. 

That’s how Clint finds himself in Eastern Europe for the first time, his bow and sniper rifle carefully hidden in the cheap apartment he’s renting with the last of his money, and rubbing elbows with well-established guns for hire, pretending to have kills under his belt and blood on his hands he doesn’t actually have. What it is about Ukraine that makes him fall in love with the place, he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s because it’s definitely not a farm, it’s unmistakably not the Midwest, and it’s the first country he’s been to outside the US. 

Kyiv is what he would’ve pictured faraway cities to look like had he allowed himself to imagine them – no use in trying to see what isn’t right in front of him or not in the range of his bow or other projectiles, he doesn’t need to literally (and figuratively) be stabbed in the back again – with its colorfully snug buildings mixing old and new construction, street vendors, monuments, and sprawling horse chestnut trees. It’s culture and a human bustle so unlike the circus that he’s more fascinated with the noise and the heat and the movement than the discomfort of the unfamiliar.  
And it’s there that he would eventually say he went wrong. 

Clint’s in his fourth bar of the evening subtly hustling darts and pool when he starts seeing double, which is mildly concerning considering he hasn’t had anything to drink. 

Luckily for him, it turns out he hasn’t lost it at the ripe old age of not even twenty, he’s just looking at the pair that probably put the “identical” in “identical twins.” 

“Xороші очі,” one of them says. 

Ukrainian has some overlap with Russian, but not enough that he can get the gist from a single sentence, so he adopts what he hopes is an _I’m a dumb tourist_ expression and crosses his fingers not holding the dart it gets them to go away. 

“Good eyes,” Twin #1 says. 

Aw, talking, no. 

Clint levels the dart, aims, and lets it fly without taking his eyes off Twin #1. 

“Yep,” he replies. 

As it happens to be his last dart, he turns to give the twins his patented concentration. He takes in impish features, shocks of black hair, and deep brown skin. Their beauty borders on too sharp, but if Clint’s priorities were any different, he wouldn’t put it past himself to try and sleep with at least one of them. The problem is that he can’t find any easily discernable (and permanent) difference between…and there it is. Twin #2 has the smallest scar hidden in the right curve of his cupid’s bow. 

“Is impressive, your aim,” Twin #1 insists. 

“Uh-huh,” Clint says. 

Twin #2 steps up then. “You seek work?” 

Really, this is what he was wishing for. He knows whose bar he’s standing in. Arturo Valentini, son of an established mobster in Italy, was well on his way to building an unrivaled fraud empire in Southern Europe, but he recruited from all around the continent in places like this one. Not that he wants to work as someone’s lackey, but he needs a bigger paycheck than what he can get from wallets and coat pockets. 

He reaches for his soda water and downs the rest. “Depends.” 

“I am Mykola,” Twin #1 smiles wide enough that Clint can spy a golden crown in his mouth. Mykola’s hand stretches out and smacks Twin #2 in the chest. “He is Mihail.” 

Two arms are thrust toward him. He can’t afford not to shake their hands. Mykola’s grip is tighter. Mihail’s is longer. He won’t know the significance of that until two days later. 

That’s how he meets the Nosenko twins. 

“You’re thieves.” 

“I am thief,” Mykola grins, his fingers playing with a piercing in his left earlobe. “My brother expert in…substances.” 

With the way Mihail is drinking horilka, Clint has no doubt he’s a professional in pending alcoholism. Whatever, it’s not Clint’s liver. 

“We have job, you see. Need lookout,” Mihail grunts. 

Mykola nods along vigorously. “Yes. How you say…easy money.” 

Flexing his hands in his lap to try and drown out a nagging uncertainty, he makes a decision. “I’ve got these good eyes and all.”

“Excellent. Is settled then,” Mihail says, clapping his hands together. 

Jacques-Louis David’s _Portrait de Lazare Hoche_ in Kyiv’s Bogdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Art speaks to Clint on a spiritual level he didn’t even know he had. Guy looks like someone just woke him up and threatened to take away the sword he’s cradling in his arms. That may or may not have happened to him. It’s traumatic, sue him. What isn’t speaking to Clint on a spiritual level he didn’t even know he had is the layout of the damn building. Mykola’s lugging the 61x50 cm painting by himself, Mihail’s stumbling around in what he’s understanding to be his natural drunken state, and Clint’s leading the pack down narrow hallways, packed rooms of sculptures that make him twitch, and wooden staircases somehow managing to be both angular and spiraling, all while wearing infrared stealth goggles. 

His salvation comes in the form of the loading door in the back of the museum he totally planned to exit through, he just thought they’d get here ten minutes ago. 

“Ah yспіху, Francis!” Mykola cheers in a hushed voice, him and the painting halfway out the door. 

Clint exhales in quiet relief and smirks. He hasn’t lost his touch. 

Then, because the universe senses his positive emotions, the lights flick on like the ambiance to the swelling soundtrack of Clint’s failure. 

And he can’t see. 

Ripping off his goggles, Clint calls out, “Mihail!” 

Eerily measured footsteps start toward him from the left and a hand claps him on the back of the neck. The sharp sting drops him to his knees. 

Mihail’s hand remains in its tight hold as leans down and whispers, _“A crow will never be a falcon.”_

Perfect English. Clean breath. 

Substances meant poison. He gets it now. 

The shove into a display case is a mercy to the dizziness. 

Clint comes to with three distinct things running through his head: there’s no such thing as easy money, he almost can’t believe he thought he was smarter than this, and ouch. 

There’s a horizontal cut on the bridge of his nose that seems to have finally clotted after bleeding like a faucet down his face, the dried blood cracking when he moves. All that’s left of the poison is muscle fatigue, feverish skin, and some nausea. 

_That futzing bastard,_ Clint think-groans, bringing his left hand up to his forehead and – 

Ouch. Again. 

Moving his hand into his field of blurry vision, Clint sees raw spots on the pads of his fingers. It takes several seconds of him refocusing his eyes to realize his calluses are gone. They’ve been sliced off. The calluses he’s been working on since he was _eight years old._ He won’t be able to shoot for – 

Red overtakes him as he passes out once more. 

The second time Clint comes to, he’s got another set of three distinct things running through his head: revenge, revenge part two, and revenge part three: return of the revenge. A cop trying to shake him awake prevents him from elaborating on his infant stages of genius. 

He doesn’t need to look around to know he’s in a holding cell – for a time, he was intimately familiar with them, and breaking out of them – but he does need the idiot cop to lean down more so he can get his legs around his neck. A knee thudding on the concrete floor has him cracking his eyes open, and the slap to the face gets his undivided attention. 

Swinging his legs up like a crazed, sentient horseshoe, Clint gets the hold he was going for, though not before the cop lets out a strangled shout. Four more officers have entered the cell by the time he’s upright and eight blurry figures have faded from his vision. He has no qualms about punching any of these guys in the face. He _does_ have qualms about prison, hence his present cop-punching attitude. But of course, Clint has brought fists to a gunfight, and he’d go out on a sturdy limb and say none of the shouting in these small quarters holds the sentiment of, “You’re free to go.” 

The only thing to do is position himself so none of the officers can get a clean shot. Ducking a pistol whip, Clint pivots, brings his knee up, and the cop’s shooting hand down. The crack of bone is still loud in the frenzy of sound as he spins to put the cop’s body between him and everyone else. He grabs the pepper spray strapped to the man’s hip and applies it liberally to the rest of his friends. They all stay down except for one. Clint automatically goes for his favorite knife that he keeps in a sheath on his left ankle. Empty. Fucking Mihail. He goes for the sheath on his right ankle for his second favorite knife. Empty. Fucking Mihail again. 

All that’s left is a spent bottle of pepper spray. The final cop charges him. Clint chucks the bottle at his face. Bullseye. 

Teamwork is overrated, he’s decided while trekking back to his rented apartment. It’s dark out, which he’s glad for since he imagines his face looks like he’s an extra in a shitty slasher flick that wandered away from set. Clint knows his first mistake was thinking that just because he and Barney aren’t close – understatement of the year – that Mykola and Mihail would be the same way. But Clint and Barney aren’t the rule, they’re the exception. His logic was faulty in the most personal sense when he thought everything about the job was impersonal. 

Sighing, he pushes open the door to the apartment building and is confronted by the five flights of stairs he had conveniently forgotten about until this very moment. 

“Everything sucks,” Clint mutters petulantly. 

He’s halfway to crossing his arms and stomping his foot when he hears yelling coming from the end of the corridor where the landlord’s office is. 

It’s a cacophony of rapid Ukrainian, but Clint recognizes the venomous spit of “bitch,” “whore,” and then “gold-digging whore.” Because he’s an adult – at minimum in life experience – Clint can also recognize that the majority of his problems are the result of sticking his nose in business that objectively doesn’t concern him. Subjectively, he’s going to have to make whatever’s going on at the end of the hallway concern him. 

Rounding a corner, Clint sees the woman who rented him the apartment pressed up against the wall by a bald, pale man in a tracksuit with golden rings on his pinkies. The gun he’s got to her forehead is gesturing wildly and the woman flinches every time the silencer brushes her skin. She has her arms behind her, wrapped around a young boy who barely brushes her knees.  
There’s no way he’ll be able to ambush the guy and disarm him with how cramped the hall is, so he whistles instead. 

Tracksuit Dracula – God, he’s clever – snaps his head toward him and says something Clint would guess isn’t complimentary, but the gun stays pointing toward the woman. That just means he’s going to have to be his most authentic self and provoke him. 

“What was that?” Clint asks. 

“Bro fuck off. None your business, bro,” Tracksuit Dracula sneers, taking a step toward him. 

Bro? “Yeah, well, I’m kinda makin’ it my business, buddy.” 

Another step and the gun is off her. “Not your buddy, bro. Is my wife, everything fine. Leave.” 

Clint scoffs and leans his arm against the wall. _“You? You’re married?_ ‘Think this,” he says, waving his hand around as if he can encompass every interpersonal issue happening in this hallway, “is what people call reason for divorce.” 

That’s what gets Tracksuit Dracula really moving toward him, and he watches the woman quickly shoo her son in the direction of a door before Clint steps forward to meet the guy and his gun.  


It’s only when Tracksuit Dracula’s mouth drops open in horror that he becomes aware of the fact that he must have been standing in a place the hall lights didn’t quite illuminate, and Clint has blood all over the bottom half of his face. He’s never been happier that his nose is all kinds of messed up. 

Taking advantage of the few seconds of shock, Clint closes the distance between him and the gun, grabs the barrel with both hands, and positions it right over his shoulder. He spins along Tracksuit Dracula’s arm until his back is against the guy’s chest and yanks the gun into his hands. If Clint wasn’t so tired, he probably would’ve only turned around and made a few threats. But he is tired, and when he’s tired, he gets mean. 

So he brings his heavy boot down onto a shitty tennis shoe and snaps his head back to the satisfying crunch of broken cartilage, the less than pleasant remnants of his headache returning with a vengeance. 

“Ебля ебать. Seriously, bro? Is on now,” Tracksuit Dracula nasally whines, hands protecting his nose. 

The woman behind them snorts and Clint looks away from the Adidas eyesore in front of him to see the tail end of her surprised amusement. 

Lowering the gun to Tracksuit Dracula’s kneecap, Clint tilts his head to the office door. “This open?” he asks.

She nods, dark hair plastered to the sides of her cheeks. 

“Move,” he says to Tracksuit Dracula, gesturing with the gun. 

He’s rifling through filing cabinets in the cramped office space when Tracksuit Dracula says for about the ninth time, “We work something out, bro.” 

“No.”

“C’mon, bro. I…compromise,” he sniffs, and then promptly winces. 

“From what I’ve seen of your marriage, _bro_ ,” Clint says dryly, “you wouldn’t know compromise if it held a gun to your head.”

Actually, that gives him an idea. 

Tracksuit Dracula sighs. “Bro, is an abusive marriage. Crazy broad beat me.” 

Clint sighs louder because if anyone should be feeling indignant, it’s _him._

Grabbing the gun, he checks the cylinder and finds all six bullets accounted for. They’re small caliber, which suits his purposes just fine. Better, even. 

The chair he has Tracksuit Dracula tied to is sturdy wood, and because Tracksuit Dracula is a cocky son of a bitch, he has his knees spread like his present circumstances are going to work out in his favor. 

Poor guy. 

Without turning around, Clint aims for the edge of the chair between his legs. But doesn’t shoot. Yet. 

“You want a compromise, Juicy Couture? Fine. Where’s the deed to this place?” 

“No dices bro –”

The silencer takes care of the sound of the bullet colliding with the chair. Not so much the shriek Tracksuit Dracula lets loose. A small chunk of wood is missing from the vee of exposed space in the middle of two shootable legs. Clint isn’t worried about Tracksuit Dracula’s outburst. This isn’t the kind of building where people come running to help at loud noises. 

“Crazy son –”

Clint shoots again. 

“Fuck bro –”

And again. 

“Wait –”

Then two more times. 

“STOP!”

He stops. There’s about half an inch of wood left before a bullet would meet Tracksuit Dracula’s groin. 

Good thing he’s got one more bullet. 

Tracksuit Dracula’s panting heavily, sweat sliding down his bald head. “What is this…Juicy Couture?” 

_Oh, dear God._

His face must scream _I’m going to shoot you in the dick_ because Tracksuit Dracula backtracks faster than a getaway car approaching a police barricade on an open freeway. 

“Bro, bro, bro. I kid, I kid. Is funny,” he leers. 

“Let me rephrase. The deed or your dick,” Clint smirks. 

“In desk drawer,” Tracksuit Dracula sulks, mumbling about crazy Americans under his breath all the while. 

Knocking on the door gives Clint time to think that this is a bad idea – though it obviously wouldn’t be the worst of the day unless there’s a shotgun on the other side – but not enough time to turn around and walk up four flights of stairs to his apartment. 

Now that he’s closer, he can see that Tracksuit Dracula’s hopefully soon-to-be ex-wife – Yana, according to all the paperwork he’s gone through – looks weirdly serene for someone who had a gun to their head not half an hour ago. But clutching a wickedly sharp dagger in your hand can do that. 

Clint doesn’t know what to say so he thrusts the bundle of paper he’s holding at her and blurts out, “Your husband’s a dick.” The “Unfortunately, he still has his” goes unsaid. 

Yana must understand some English because her hardened face utterly transforms with a small smile. It only gets wider when she thumbs through the updated paperwork that name her the sole proprietor of the building. A hand then reaches for his wrist and tugs him into the apartment. 

He rapidly discovers that Yana doesn’t speak – which is okay with him, he’s filled his quota of smooth talkers for the year – but her son Bohdan talks enough for the both of them. First in Ukrainian, but after realizing Clint can’t keep up, in broken English. What he’s less okay with is the reason why she doesn’t. 

“мама neck hurt,” Bohdan says while he kicks Clint’s ass at Mario Kart. In all honesty, he’s never played, but the kid needs to lose at least once. It’s character building. 

She’s wearing a turtleneck, so he can’t see anything as she walks back to the living room from the bathroom. 

Bohdan drops his controller and cups his neck. “I held it,” he whispers. 

Yana does a hand gesture and the kid whines something in Ukrainian. “Bye, Clint. No good at Mario. Get better,” he says, jerking his chin from the small TV to Clint. 

“Night, kiddo,” Clint chuckles. 

Rising to his feet, he starts to say, “Well, I should go –”

An arm yanks him back down to the couch, and his field of vision is swarmed by a wet washcloth dabbing at the bridge of his nose. He’s lightly manhandled for a few minutes until he can’t help but ask, “Are you gonna be okay here?” 

Carefully, his chin is tilted up and his eyes meet Yana’s green ones. They’re filled with an exasperated mirth that reminds him so much of Petronia his heart aches. 

She pats him on his now clean cheek and the next thing Clint sees is a small scar on her jugular.

Admittedly, he thought it’d be uglier, a jagged, thick line of raised tissue. The neatness is disconcerting in its own right. Either the person who did it has a medical background, or they’ve done it enough times to have practiced movements. He understands why the kid isn’t afraid of blood if he had to stop the flow from his mother’s neck with his own hands. 

“You want me to kill him?” 

Clint’s never killed anyone, but somehow he knows – like he knew he when he picked up a bow for the first time that he’d learn how to really breathe, like he knew when he felt twin bursts of pain in his shoulder blades, his brother was responsible for one of them, and like he knew when he heard yelling down the hallway that he was going to intervene – that one day, he was going to. And he thinks he would still be able to sleep at night if it was Tracksuit Dracula. 

Pointing to the door, Yana shakes her head.

“Tracksuit Dracula didn’t do it?” 

Her laugh exists in silence too, but Clint didn’t have any reason to believe otherwise. 

“Who did?”

The fabric of her turtleneck gets rolled back up the line of her throat and she reaches for what looks like an old homework assignment and a chewed-on pencil. 

_Marko Banionis._

He doesn’t know the name. 

A Curious George Band-Aid pressed onto his nose nearly has him crossing his eyes. 

He’ll remember it.

Yana holds her dagger out to him – handle first – as she walks him to the door. 

Frowning, he says, “I can’t take that.” 

She’s curling his hand around it a beat later. 

It’s a nice blade. Dark, double-edged, O-ring handle. Good for throwing and close combat. 

He needed a third favorite knife anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, sorry about the original characters.

_What’s currently happening in Ukraine_

That was Clint’s first and last summer in Kyiv. Eight years later, the facts are these: he’s older now, it’s winter, and he’s sitting in the penthouse of one Mykola Nosenko. Jacques-Louis David’s _Portrait de Lazare Hoche_ would be staring back at him from the wall adjacent to the doorway, but he’s already packed it into a carrying sleeve. Hanging the painting at all is indicative of an arrogance Clint plans to throw in Mykola’s face. Overconfidence kills just as often, if not more than diffidence. 

The penthouse is almost empty in its modern minimalism – black and white furniture, marble floors, and countertops with traces of gray veining, and gold finishing. It’s the walls that belie the coldness. They remind Clint of the house of mirrors at the circus, but with paintings. He got lost in there once running away from Trick, and he wouldn’t like to get lost in here all the same. Masterfully painted eyes follow him instead of his distorted reflection. Clint doesn’t know which is worse. 

Stomach rumbling, he makes his way to the kitchen and the ridiculous double door refrigerator, because he subscribes to the philosophy that you can’t make a grown man cry on an empty stomach. Nothing, except for some dubious takeout boxes. By the way the paintings are arranged, and just _how many_ there are, he’d bet Mykola’s been living off of illegal energy drinks and happy thoughts. The pantry is equally bare, but he spies a bag of chips. Packaged and unopened, just what he wanted. He gives the drawers the same treatment and finds a false bottom in the fourth one he tries. Okay, illegal energy drinks and cocaine. Or happy thoughts and cocaine. Or illegal energy drinks, happy thoughts, _and_ cocaine. 

It’s in his third pass of the main living room that Clint decides the layout isn’t going to work for his dramatic monologue. So he moves the couches closer to the walls and kicks the coffee table along with them. The desk in front of the south side windows is pushed into the vacated space. Clint pulls up a chair, sets down exactly two arrows, and leans back with his feet on the desk. 

He thinks he should attempt to channel the Black Widow ala Monaco, but he’s Hawkeye, dammit, he’s built enough of a formidable reputation to scare the golden crown out of this fucker’s mouth on his own. 

Some things he wouldn’t mind being like Monaco. If anything, he needs his nonchalance from that night. 

But he’s forgetting something, something important – his chips. 

Now all that’s left to do is wait. 

Mykola Nosenko is dressed in an expensive but ill-fitting suit. It’s a toss-up whether he thinks the oversized look is in style, he doesn’t have a tailor, he’s in the thick of a cocaine bender, or a combination of all three. 

Going by the behemoth-sized coffee cup Clint shoots an arrow through, it’s likely the cocaine bender. 

Finishing his chips, he observes the near comical shock that’s all but slapped Mykola in the face, because Clint being in here at all is a question of the man’s own experience, professionalism, and the people he surrounds himself with. 

“Who’s the traitor?” is not a fun game to play at eight in the morning and covered in coffee. 

Apparently, Mykola isn’t one to shake off a surprise whammy with ease, so Clint takes an inane amount of time nocking his second arrow, admiring the fletching and the black carbon fiber. He sinks into the familiar weight of stick on string, but he doesn’t utilize his full draw – he’s mostly convinced himself not to kill the guy at twenty feet with a 250 pounds-force draw-weight bow.

That’d be messy. Well, messier than usual. Still quiet – 

“Francis?” Mykola stares. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m a goddamn vision,” Clint drawls, aiming for the half-inch of space allotted by the hoop in Mykola’s earlobe.

His head tries to turn to see where Clint’s pinned him to the wall. “What are you…” he trails off. 

“Doing here? Was lookin’ for your bastard brother. Couldn’t find him. Guess you’ll have to be graced with my presence instead.”

“Unless,” Clint says, twirling a Sharpie he found in his rucksack, “you wanna tell me where he is?” 

The silence that descends and the pinched look on Mykola’s face isn’t unexpected.

SHIELD’s trained him in interrogation, the talking kind and the _not talking_ kind. But that’s only torture in theory, not in practice. There’s no arguing Clint Barton’s a killer, he’s made his peace with that. It’s the idea of drawing out someone’s pain to get what he wants – not a shot to the head, eye, or throat – that stops him, and he knows he’s found another line to add to the handful he won’t cross. 

Though dressing up a threat to walk and talk like a promise is a skill he’d put on his nonexistent resumé. 

“My bad, that sounded like a question. You _will_ tell me where your brother is.” 

For an instant, Clint watches the warring facades of a waspish child and a master thief.   
“Or what?” 

Clint grins, all teeth. “Or that becomes the _second_ arrow I shoot at you today. Not the last.” 

“Is doing business. Has meeting in the night,” Mykola grimaces as an aborted move to smooth over the buttons of his vest – or discreetly wipe the sweat off his hands – pulls on his ear. 

“Oh, a night meeting. Gotta love those. Sign me up for the dirty details.” 

And…they’re back to tight lips again. 

“Fine,” Clint taunts, “have it your way.” 

While he was waiting, Clint had picked out what he thought was Mykola’s favorite painting – hung at level, original frame, centered in the middle of the wall. He may not have the biggest hard-on for art, but even he can appreciate how it looks like a moment there and gone, a windswept landscape, and the woman holding a parasol and the little boy behind her stable yet fluid in the gale. 

He puts his uncapped Sharpie a millimeter in front of it and holds. 

Panic distorts Mykola’s visage into a desperate, animalistic instinct to protect, and Clint can see pupils dilate further in their nest of blood vessels. 

“Mihail never tell me details.” 

“Ah. Big brother isn’t telling you things anymore?” Clint asks. It’s softer than he intends it to be, but he knows the feeling. 

And here Clint thought Mykola and Mihail were different than him and Barney. 

“What do you think came first? Mihail moving on to bigger and better things, or you needing him more than he needs you?”

Mykola’s jaw locks tight and Clint can practically hear teeth grinding. He wonders how much golden crowns go for. 

“It’s always the younger sibling that gets the shit end of the stick, huh?” Clint says, moving the Sharpie closer. 

That earns him some shouting in Ukrainian, two more minutes of mulish silence, and then a reluctant, “In Obolonskyi District, along bay. Is all I know.” 

Vague as that is, Clint’s a super magnet for trouble, he’ll be reunited with his babies relatively soon.

But he’s got errands to run before revenge part two is put into motion. 

“Well man, I’d say it was a pleasure except for how you’re the complete opposite of that,” Clint says, shouldering his rucksack and the painting. 

“Wha –”

“C’mon, hold still,” he chides, grabbing Mykola’s chin. “On the off chance you see your brother before I do, I need to tell him something.”

_I’m a hawk motherfucker,_ is penned in Sharpie on Mykola’s face. He attempts to draw a bird too, but it comes out looking like Clint’s been running on illegal energy drinks and happy thoughts – only half of that is true. 

Retrieving the arrow he shot Mykola’s coffee with, he considers the one that has him hugging the wall. SHIELD’s going to know either way that this was him, especially when he calls them. No use in taking it out. 

“You kill me now?” Mykola asks. 

“Nah, I rigged some explosives in your Bentley. Was waitin’ for –”

_BOOM!_

“That,” Clint finishes. 

Then he puts his index and middle finger on Mykola’s forehead and knocks his head back into the wall. 

“Sweet dreams,” he says, dialing SHIELD headquarters on the iPhone he pocketed from one of Mykola’s lackluster security team because they’re unbelievably easy to track. He enters his code and tosses the phone on the couch. 

Next stop: art museum. 

Clint’s just returned the painting after seriously contemplating throwing it through a window like a fancy frisbee (he props it outside that fateful back loading door) – surprised to find out the museum didn’t have a drop-off bin for stolen goods – when he sees Rumlow’s stupid square head leaving a hotel about two blocks ahead of him. 

That means SHIELD is already in the area. 

How long they’ve been here he doesn’t know. 

Doesn’t mean he can’t figure it out. 

Making a right on the next street, Clint walks as fast as he can get away with for three blocks and takes a left back onto the one he saw Rumlow so he can meet him coming the opposite direction.

Rumlow’s bitching into his phone and Clint’s banking on it being enough of a distraction while he kneels down to pretend to tie his shoe. 

“– Coulson’s leadin’ the raid. Somehow this guy is _my_ superior. When we find Barton, I swear to fucking…” 

He stands up right as a group of school-aged children is passing Rumlow on the right and Clint’s an arm’s length away to reach behind himself and slip his hand into Rumlow’s coat pocket. The heaviness of the coat and the kids are ultimately what allows him to pull it off. Rumlow’s not so badly trained that Clint could get the drop on him _that_ smoothly, much to his own chagrin. 

The wallet he nabs has Rumlow’s SHIELD badge, credit cards, and hotel room key. 

Not so lucky for Rumlow, Clint can raise hell with all of those things. 

Easily. 

A cursory look through Rumlow’s hotel room and all he really learns about the guy is that he’s kind of a slob, and enough of an idiot to drink from the minibar. 

To his immense satisfaction, Clint sees that Rumlow got a new pair of boots, which he will fuck with after he short sheets the bed, introduces his toothbrush to the toilet, cuts up his SHIELD badge and room key into the shapes of a dick and middle finger respectively, and freezes his V-necks in the hotel fridge. 

Coulson’s adjoining room is where Clint spends the most time. He hadn’t thought Coulson would be messy, but it’s akin to organized chaos – separate piles of paperwork and other G-man detritus are spread out around the space by a thought process Clint imagines only Coulson can understand. 

There had been a certain amount of unrestrained glee in going through Rumlow’s stuff. With Coulson’s, he can feel the niggling worms of guilt and doubt doing their worm thing to try and stop him. But then Clint reminds himself Coulson lied to him and he feels somewhat absolved in his snooping. 

The bedside table yields a pair of reading glasses – it’s a shame he never got to see those in action – a fountain pen that’s actually a dagger, a seemingly innocuous button that Clint unscrews the back of to find a compass, and a book. 

_Captain America: A History (The Unabridged Version), Foreword by Peggy Carter._

“So Coulson’s a history buff,” Clint hums as he flips through the first few pages. 

Maybe history buff was an understatement. Coulson’s got notes on notes in the margins on Captain America’s battle strategies and tactical maneuvers, calculated probabilities on the degree to which he and the Commandos turned the tides of the war, and theories on where exactly the _Valkyrie_ crash-landed in the Arctic, coupled with a budget plan for SHIELD allocating more active resources to a search party. 

He’s starting to see why Coulson’s meticulousness is so coveted at SHIELD, but that doesn’t change the fact that the agent of all agents is a Captain America fanboy. 

Turning back to the cover, Clint catches a different style of handwriting. It damn near looks like calligraphy it’s so beautiful and uniform. 

_To Phillip,_

_I suspect you and Steve would have gotten on like a house on fire._

_Enjoy,_

_Peggy Carter_

“Shit, Coulson. Friends in high places,” Clint says. 

The closet houses Coulson’s famous suits, though Clint’s more amused by how much he unpacks – the socks and the Army Rangers t-shirt in the dresser, the slippers at the side of the bed, and the well-loved University of Chicago sweatshirt thrown over an armchair. He’s almost jealous of how Coulson can seemingly make a home out of a hotel room when he’s never felt at home anywhere. 

But Clint doesn’t want to have feelings right now, so he heads for the bathroom instead.

Coulson has an affinity for oral hygiene. Good for him. It’s also a great reminder for Clint that he should brush his teeth soon and invest in this glorified string for the sake of… _removing plaque and debris to prevent tooth decay and gum disease_. Jesus. If it came down to it, he could probably choke someone with it too, dual-purpose and all that. 

He takes the floss. Coulson seems like the kind of guy to have a spare. 

What Clint’s the most enamored by is the shaving kit he finds in a wooden box in the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity. Warm in color, the wood has initials etched into its surface that aren’t Coulson’s: R.J.C., possibly his father or grandfather. It’s hard to think of anyone at SHIELD having any family, considering how much they all bleed for their jobs and like doing it the majority of the time. The straight razor, shaving soap, and wood brush are oddly humanizing. More effort, but better results. He gets that. There are just some things you have to do yourself. Clint could have left that painting in the penthouse, but he had to be the one to return it. With his own hands. 

Rubbing at his stubble that’s verging on a beard, he wonders if he should start using a straight razor after he’s no longer the subject of an international manhunt, and/or still alive. He’s always used clippers or a safety since _sometimes_ he’s clumsy. Coulson’s making Clint reconsider a lot of his life decisions and he’s not even here. 

The asshole. 

Clint leaves with the smell of Coulson’s aftershave – vetiver, sandalwood, and Aloe Vera – tickling his nose. 

_Left kneecap first. Tick tock_ is the note Clint shoves in Rumlow’s boots who are enjoying their new home on the ledge of a building across the street because he believes in consistency. 

Hryvnia isn’t a currency he’s familiar with, but however much he ends up withdrawing from the ATM using Rumlow’s credit cards is enough to make a street busker’s eyes widen when he drops half into his guitar case. 

It’s also enough to adopt a hyena at the Kyiv Zoo and name it Brock Rumlow. 

Over the span of six years, Yana and Clint argue through precisely thirty-six postcards about her giving him the apartment free of charge. Clint held out as long as he could until Yana was writing in such lawyer-like circles he accepted out of sheer exhaustion. 

Now, standing in his apartment for the first time since _the incident_ , comparably as exhausted as he was then, he’s grateful she wore him down. 

Slapping his hand on the coffee maker, hoping against all hope that actually does something, Clint starts to whisper-sing, “Laptop, laptop, laptop. Where are you, laptop?”

He _does_ know where the shower is. 

But the couch is right there. 

Shower.

Couch. 

Shower. 

Floss?

_Couch._

The couch is hard and unfair and not at all what he remembers. He pouts into the cushion he’s face down in and sticks his hand under it in his normal sleeping position only to find a half-eaten box of cereal, a semi-fletched arrow, and his good for nothing laptop. 

“Knew you wouldn’t betray me like this, baby,” Clint croons, setting the laptop on the coffee table and inserting the thumb drive. 

Red Room files are so obsessively organized to the point where all he has to do is click on an icon titled, “Affiliated Personnel” and he gets what he wants: eight names of some of the scummiest scumbags to ever scum the earth. The names should be familiar – he wasn’t all that focused on the small details during that mission debrief – but the lone one that sticks out is Arturo Valentini. 

He scrolls down farther. 

And _Marko Banionis._

Clint chokes on his handful of stale cereal. 

Marko Banionis’s resumé is a page-turner in the worst way. A human trafficker with footholds most everywhere in the world, Banionis was a ghost – no pictures, no agreed-upon demographic characteristics, no good sightings. For all anyone knew, the man could have died and been replaced with someone who took his name. As ironic as it was, Banionis was on the kill-on-sight list of every known – and unknown – government agency. Clint clicks around some more, but he can’t determine the _why_ behind the sustained allegiance to the Red Room. If they’re profiting off Banionis’s global connections and network of fear, or his actual “profession.” Knowing what he does about the Red Room, it’s both. What that means for Yana, he has no clue. Tracksuit Dracula could have gotten on Banionis’s bad side and Yana’s neck was retribution. But he has the distinct feeling that Tracksuit Dracula would be deader than dead in the deepest ditch had he crossed Banionis. 

It’s more likely Yana was trafficked, and she was Tracksuit Dracula’s present for a job well done. 

Clint shuts his eyes to a roiling stomach and a pounding head. 

Opening his eyes to the rich smell of coffee, Clint stumbles off the couch and nearly brains himself on three separate pieces of furniture before he’s up close and personal with the object of his dreams: the coffee pot and its life-affirming contents. 

“Aww, pretty,” he says, stroking the pot and unceremoniously drinking straight from it. 

Coffee pots are what coffee mugs aspire to be. And if Clint’s left ass cheek didn’t already have the Chinese character for pizza purposely tattooed there, then he knows what he’d have to do. 

To his delight, the fridge has been visited by the grocery fairy, which he’d be apprehensive of if the grocery fairy hadn’t also left a note: 

_Not poisoned. Eat._

_– Yana_

Clint doesn’t recall telling her he was in town – he very well could’ve, though he’s still recovering from seventy-two adrenaline-filled hours with no sleep – but he’s used to dark-haired women unapologetically telling him what to do, so he eats. 

Four bowls of cereal, two sandwiches, and a turkey leg later, there’s a knock at the door. 

The peephole Clint really shouldn’t be looking through reveals a lanky teenager; the .45 tucked into the back of his jeans reminds him not to underestimate the acne, braces, and attitude that come with being seventeen. He’s met criminals and terrorists less cruel than a pissed off teenager – he still shudders to think about Barney and him at that age, and how it wasn’t that long ago. 

Bringing a casual hand to the small of his back, Clint opens the door to –

“Old man! Better at Mario yet?”

He takes a breath and releases his grip on the gun. 

Bohdan’s the spitting image of his mother – no visible Tracksuit Dracula characteristics unless the kid develops an unhealthy obsession with nylon – now that Clint can see him sans the distortion of a peephole. The same green eyes, hardened face, and a palpable will to live. A small shine of youthful exuberance may be their only glaring difference. 

Oh, and how tall he is. 

“Christ, kid. You get any taller and I’m gonna be breaking my neck.”

Blushing, Bohdan says, “Girls like it.” 

_Damn right they do,_ Clint thinks. _And boys._

“And what’s this ‘old man’ bullshit, _kiddo_?” Clint asks, stepping out into the hallway and closing the apartment door behind him. “I’m hip. I can play the Mario.”

“Feet in grave, man,” Bohdan sniffs, playfully knocking his shoulder against Clint’s. 

They set off for the four flights of stairs he knows are much better going down than up. 

“мама want to see you,” the kid says unnecessarily. 

“Yeah,” Clint nods, “How’d you know I was in town?” 

Tight silence settles around them like a thickening fog, and Clint can tell Bohdan’s chewing on something, so he waits him out. That’s part of his job description after all. 

It takes two flights of stairs before he mumbles, “I read it.”

Clint stops on the landing. “You read it,” he repeats blankly.

The postcards are the first things that come to mind, but he never mentioned a visit in them, not that this “visit” was planned in the first place. 

Bohdan gives him a tremulous smile. “Is like seeing future, but I read it.” 

Huh, and all Clint has is mild dyslexia. 

His lack of response must be taken as intolerance because the kid’s face droops. 

“Hey, no,” he blurts. “It’s neat. How’s it work?”

And the smile turns megawatt brilliant. 

“Words get… bright when I read. Make new sentences.”

Clint grins along with him. “School must be hell.”

Laughter fills the last two flights of stairs. 

Yana’s in the kitchen when Clint finds her, and he’s immediately accosted by a wooden spoon in his mouth. This isn’t the weirdest way someone’s tried to kill him, but it is the tastiest. The sour-sweet of the beetroot in the Borsch wakes him right up, and the tender white cabbage, carrots, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes are the first vegetables he’s had in…a while. These are the undeniable advantages of having a face that makes people want to feed him. Though it was much more effective at eight years old with circus folk. 

Savory pampushky are baking in the oven, and Clint inhales the smell of rising bread and fresh garlic because this may be his last home-cooked meal – ever. Depressing is often confused with realistic and realistic is a close cousin of _very fucking likely,_ so he’s going to enjoy the food knowing it’s very fucking likely this chase is going to end in SHIELD killing him, making him wish he was dead, or the Black Widow offering a two-for-one special at her last murder party. He could disappear for real, go to ground hard and stack the odds a little, but this will go down in history as one of the few things he has to see through. Petronia’s fortune notwithstanding. 

The spoon tapping Clint’s mouth breaks him from his reverie, only to be greeted by Yana’s look that says, _why aren’t you complimenting my cooking?_

_You’ve ruined all other food for me,_ he replies with his eyes. 

_Kiss ass,_ she look-says back. 

Clint just winks and goes to set the table. 

Once he’s gorged himself on food, kicked Bohdan’s ass in Mario the predetermined four times, and had Yana knock his ego down all the possible pegs while playing Ukrainian Scrabble, Clint helps her with the dishes. 

He waits until she’s not holding anything to say, “Marko Banionis is a human trafficker.” 

It doesn’t matter that he stalled so she wasn’t holding a sharp object or a plate, Yana’s reaction rips something open in the both of them, and Clint would regret saying it if it wasn’t important. 

Her eyes are glassy, and her breathing has picked up, hands clenching the countertop as if she’s trying to hold herself there but can’t. 

And Clint knows all too well what it feels like to float away from your body, drowning in a current you could’ve sworn you already swam through.

Or avoided altogether. 

Touching her isn’t going to do anyone any good – it never helped him, and he doesn’t want to take the chance of making this worse – so he softly nudges the wind chime she has hanging over the sink, hoping it can offer something grounding to the senses. 

She finally turns to him after what’s been a small eternity, eyes still slightly somewhere else, and Clint exaggerates his breathing so she might unconsciously copy him. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything you went through. S’not why I said it,” he whispers cautiously, voice verging on inaudible. “But if you know what he looks like, we could help a lot of people.” 

Chances are if the Red Room and some of the best government and non-government agencies in the world don’t know what Banionis looks like, neither does Romanova, even though she won her league and made an entirely new one just for herself. 

Yana’s situation is rare, and as much as Clint doesn’t want to exploit it, there are unknowns that could be answered on one of the most uncharted operations in the world. All he needs is a single defining characteristic. 

A steady hand moves over her left eye, and Clint’s reminded of the first time he saw her in the hallway two floors below. Half of her face exposed, but enough to know he would have to see the rest. 

Some people you can look at all at once. Others, you have to take in in pieces. 

The best and worst people are usually the latter. 

Clint’s perplexed, nevertheless, so much so that he can feel his eyebrows crinkling and the scar over the bridge of his nose pulling in equal measure. “…I Spy?”

She gives him the mother of all unimpressed looks. He imagines his unlikely future children can feel the force of it. 

“Gah! One-sided sunglasses. Monocle. Broken glasses. Eyepatch!” 

His charade skills remain intact. 

Why do all the special assholes wear eyepatches? 

He’s going to sign Fury up for the “Eyepatch of the Month Club” to stop the eyepatch stereotype. (If it’s not a thing, Clint will make it a thing.)

Also to piss Fury off, but that’s a given. 

The look intensifies. 

So, not an eyepatch. 

What could it…?

“Blind! He’s blind in his left eye!” 

Bohdan makes an inquisitive noise from the living room, and Clint can only think of one thing to say: 

“My boss, dude. He’s blind in his left eye.”

It’s truth-adjacent, in that Fury is, for all intents and purposes, no longer his boss. 

There’s a grunt, and Clint will take it as the teenager signal of assent. 

Telegraphing his movements, he edges closer to Yana, watching her for even the smallest tick of discomfort. When he doesn’t find it, he wraps his arms around her loosely and mumbles “Дякую” into her hairline. 

The hug gets tighter. And he knows then he hasn’t ruined everything. 

Blind in the left eye is both vague and specific, depending on the circumstances. 

If Romanova manages to lure Banionis in with her death party invitations – while Clint follows – it becomes a waiting game.

As long as Banionis ends up dead, he can get over it not being his show nor his kill. 

He has a feeling Romanova is saving the worst for last. 

Clint’s worked with less. 

After reassuring Yana that no, he cannot take food with him, Clint heads for the door. The kid is stretched out along the couch, phone right above his face, and gangly puppy limbs he hasn’t grown into yet. 

Clint taps the back of the phone screen. “Bye, kid.”

“Old man,” Bohdan snickers, “safe travels.” 

“Not with these hips,” he jokes. 

“Hey,” he says, suddenly thinking he could use all the help he could get, “what’s my future lookin’ like?”

Bohdan grabs for an anatomy and physiology textbook left forgotten on the coffee table, seemingly flips to a random page. 

“Have heart, Clint,” Bohdan says. 

He can’t tell if it’s beseeching or a statement.

However he means it, Clint knows it’s important. 

“And this guy in suit…” 

He groans. 

The Obolonskyi District is the convenient owner of the Obolon Bay, and where there’s a bay, there’s also a supposed night meeting between Mihail Nosenko and company. Surrounded by both bushy trees and docks, the waterline is long and meandering, which isn’t doing Clint’s timeline any favors in terms of searching nearly forty-three square miles in snatches of streetlight and the occasional nautical light. 

Dark water _might_ freak him out, so the sooner he finds his man, the better. 

Should Mihail have lied to him, Clint’s going to introduce him to something more permanent than a Sharpie. 

“If _you_ were an arrogant, high maintenance psychopath, where would you have a meeting in the dead of night along a futzing bay?” Clint asks himself, eyeing the wooden planks of the dock distrustfully. 

It stands to reason that Mihail shares his brother’s appreciation for the finer things, though it may not show itself through art. So where would a rich asshole go to express his rich asshole tendencies in a place like this? 

He guesses he’ll just die among all these boats. 

Boats. 

Rich people boats. 

Yachts. 

_Yacht club._

Big boats to compensate for small dicks. Yacht clubs to compensate for not having the biggest yacht. 

His series of revelations expedites his discovery of the yacht club’s private dock and small manor spread over a sprawling lawn. 

Shockingly, Clint doesn’t stay up to date with the world of yachting through his nonexistent membership to, “I’m in a Perpetual Midlife Crisis Monthly,” but considering it’s winter and the lack of boats in their designated spaces, he can conclude it’s the off-season. 

That makes breaking into the baby mansion easier. 

The suspiciously unlocked door just happens to be an upsetting bonus. 

Mihail could simply be an elite member using his key, but he knows a lockpick job when he sees one, and it’s good too. No scratches or other signs of force, yet leaving the door unlocked is a blatant display of confidence: using your entry as your exit. 

Clint knows one person with that much poised cool-headedness. 

Natalia Romanova is in the building. 

Mihail Nosenko is dead. 

As is Takeshi Otsuka, leader of Eastern Japan’s premier assassin syndicate. 

Clint’s pissed Mihail probably never got to see his face-note. 

Natalia Romanova has left the building. 

They’re in the ballroom when he finds the bodies. He didn’t have to look very hard. Had he somehow approached the manor from the direction of the lawn, he could’ve seen them from the windows – the Black Widow had decided to not only turn on the lights but keep them on. 

Everyone thinks they’ll die in the dark, that it’s natural because the dark is inherently scarier than the light, and death is compatibly scary. It’s the belief that dying in the light is so wrong that that’s truly what’s scariest. 

Takeshi Otsuka sustained the typical slit throat, another piece of cardstock shoved in the wound. Mihail Nosenko died first from an execution-style bullet to the forehead, as if Romanova didn’t draw it out. Clint wonders if that’s her version of mercy, despite his desire for the poetic justice of poison.

Favorite knife and second favorite knife are positioned in a cross over Mihail’s chest. 

_Aww, knives, yes,_ he thinks. 

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he murmurs darkly, running his thumb over the “H” for Hawkeye he has carved into each of their hilts before they go in the sheaths on his ankles. 

Negotiating the cardstock out of Otsuka’s trachea, he holds the invitation up to the slowly rotating chandelier, light refractions bouncing in lazy circles. 

_Her executioner reminds her / To smile until the party’s over_

Well if the mood wasn’t already somber in here. 

He learned his lesson with the last card and burns this one with his lighter. SHIELD was too close this time. 

Google is going to have to catch him up on poetry, but all Clint has is his burner, which leaves Mihail or Otsuka’s pockets. 

Mihail’s seem less bloody. 

Manhandling someone’s face to look less dead to fool Face ID is the hardest thing he’s done in _months._

“Couldn’t have Touch ID, could you, asshole,” Clint grumbles, giving a baleful glance toward Mihail’s thumbs. 

Eventually, he pulls Mihail’s eyelids open while hiding the bullet wound and it’s miraculously accepted. 

According to the cultured people of the internet, the lines are from Grigore Vieru’s poem, “Sunt” (I am), on Moldova’s struggle to free itself from the demands of Soviet rule. 

“Moldova it is, Romanova.” 

Clint feels eyes on him the second he walks out of the manor, but it's a gaze he's been under before. 

And, as it's not through a scope, he's inclined to exercise some of the manners he still has that weren't left in the 80s. 

"Thanks for not taking my knives," he calls out to a wall of trees. 

An owl hoots a beat later and Clint definitely doesn't shriek a little. 

Natasha would later tell him that was the first time she had smiled in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Clint stalking Phil like a very confused puppy.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some weird cracky emotional fluff before you find out: What happened in Budapest?
> 
> Also, some of the HTML isn't showing up, so I'm going to go back and fix it later. Fingers crossed.

**Dubasari, Moldova**

Six.

**Arad, Romania**

Five. 

**Plovdiv, Bulgaria**

Four.

**Elez Han, Kosovo**

Three. 

In Sremski Karlovci, Serbia, Clint decides to let Coulson catch up. And it is just Coulson, all signs point to Rumlow’s absence since after Arad. He would almost be disappointed that he doesn’t get to root around another one of Rumlow’s hotel rooms and leave the complimentary note, _It’s righty’s turn. Tick tock_ – he managed to nail Rumlow in the left knee with a homemade slingshot while being chased through the busy transportation hub on the Mureș River – if he didn’t have a plan to follow Coulson for the day. 

Know thy enemy. Right. 

Following _the incident_ in Ukraine eight years ago, Clint needed a place to lick his wounds, and train hopping three countries away to the municipality of Sremski Karlovci was the kind of happy accident that didn’t happen to him unless the world had thoroughly fucked him over first. 

Getting pickpocketed, poisoned, and his calluses cut off had apparently counted. 

Tucked along the banks of the Danube, Sremski Karlovci reminded him that try as he might, he was a small-town boy, and small places weren’t smothering as long as he wasn’t made to feel small right along with them. That’s how Waverly was when he was in it: pridefully shrinking. The gold and green vineyards, the Baroque style architecture that Clint loved to climb because the high domes were a slippery challenge, and the orange and cream-colored building facades of Sremski Karlovci felt like they had a pulse.

And he had nothing better to do than put his finger on it. 

It was in a fit of boredom that he found the bookstore, Каирос. Not being able to shoot because of his stinging finger pads left him with mapping the city (done) and watching TV (he’s caught up on all the episodes of a Turkish soap opera called _The Fall of Leaves_ ), so he was desperate for entertainment, simple as that. Clint didn’t like to read if he was being blunt about it. He didn’t hate it, but he learned later than most, and his idea of a good time wasn’t powering through the twisting jumble of letters. 

The meaning of “Каирос" in Serbian must have been the same as it was in Russian because the shopkeeper engaged him in a stilted conversation about how the name was derived from the Ancient Greek, “Kairos,” meaning “the right time.” Opportune moments for Clint didn’t extend beyond strategic thinking since believing there was a single right time to do anything was the easiest way to do nothing at all. But buying _Lord of Scoundrels_ then and tailing Coulson now are possibly the closest he’s ever gotten and will ever get to creating the right time and subsequently taking advantage of it.

He picked Loretta Chase’s _Lord of Scoundrels_ because it was the only book written in English – Serbian Cyrillic and leisure weren’t the question and answer to a crossword clue. So for the next week and a half, Clint found himself ensconced in a Regency romance. He really didn’t hate it. The first time he read it, he read it for the sex scenes, no context whatsoever. The second time he read it, he read it for the plot – a strong, smart woman, her idiot brother, and the immoral aristocrat he’s enthralled by – and all the times after, he read it for the banter. That’s what he wanted with someone: not necessarily the palpable sexual tension (though he obviously wouldn’t mind), nor exchanging verbal jabs over a pocket watch depicting oral sex, but someone who knew him well enough to know what friendly teasing was and what wasn’t. Barney always told him he was too sensitive. Truthfully, Clint was too sensitive for _Barney_ , and he’s not ashamed he can cry without it being a threat to his masculinity. 

Romantic crap and love weren’t and aren’t in the cards for him. He’ll still read about it in the only book he’s ever owned and voluntarily read. It’s enough. 

Clint learns a lot about Coulson in between snatches of reading. None of which he’s overly surprised about. Until he is. 

#1 Coulson remains a history buff, and not just on all things Captain America and WWII. He visits all the churches, the gymnasium, and the spot where the Treaty of Karlowitz was negotiated. 

#2 Coulson’s got an old leg injury – upper thigh. There isn’t any indication for the first three hours he follows him, so it must be the combination of the cold weather and the beginning of hour four that has stiffness leaking through measured steps. 

#3 He doesn’t know if it’s a deliberate disarming behavior or a nervous tic – they’re presumably beneath him – but Coulson rubs the scar on the thin skin between his thumb and index finger. 

#4 Coulson likes food. He knew the likelihood of this to begin with, though watching him eat does the same thing as rifling through his shaving kit: it’s humanizing. (If Clint hadn’t touched him the first time they officially met, he would believe his own rumor that Coulson was an astral projection.) Subpoint 4a. – Coulson eats like he has nowhere else to be or negotiating peace treaties in war-torn countries with how precise he is. Sub-subpoint 4b. – Sremski Karlovci has a lot of wineries; Coulson’s a red man. 

#5 Coulson nearly maps the city faster than Clint did. He imagines that’s only a small part of Coulson’s super-secret Army Rangers skills, but he suddenly wants to see Coulson’s close combat moves because he already knows the man is a good shot, his own left thigh can attest to it. 

#6 Coulson has voices other than varying shades of monotone, _why are you still talking to me_ , and _I’m just a bland man in a suit_. There’s the _talking to locals_ voice, _nerding out about history_ voice, and _on a conference call with May and Sitwell_ voice. 

It’s during that very conference call Clint’s situational stupidity overpowers his mission mentality and he trips. Loudly. Coulson’s back straightens even more, shoulders rotating in his direction – damn nice posture – and he silently curses his body’s tendency to get clumsy when it subconsciously judges its relatively safe and nothing is on the line. 

He practically dives into an alley and heads straight for one of the corners. Wall jumping is a lot easier when you’re seventeen and comparably scrawny, but he manages to hook his hands on the edge of the roof and pull himself up. The roof is flat, and he has a sneaking suspicion that if he runs, Coulson will hear it. That’s not to say he couldn’t outrun Coulson, especially now, though it could be riskier than lying on his back and waiting him out. 

So that’s what Clint does, lies down like a tense starfish and stares up at the clouds, waiting to hear footsteps. 

Then, the rain starts. Biting and icy like it is when it’s not quite snow. He opens his mouth to it, tastes cold and earth and clean. 

Winter skies, he thinks, are just about interchangeable wherever he goes: gray and white, suffocating in their closeness, and perpetually on the cusp of worse weather, but people aren’t the sky, and he’s ultimately trying to distract himself from the presence lingering around the mouth of the alley and the real reason he decided to follow Coulson around today because it isn’t about knowing his enemy. It’s about the fact that Coulson’s here alone – he checked – and it being one of the few truths of Clint Barton’s life that Coulson chasing him is the longest anyone’s ever stuck with him without the bond of familial obligation. 

Even if it’s likely they’re trying to kill him. 

Clint doesn’t know why Coulson’s following _him_. Given enough time, he would’ve followed him back. 

And that’s what confuses the hell out of him. 

An entire day wasn’t necessary to figure out their differences, all he needed was eighteen minutes. 

Coulson worships at the feet of forethought.

Clint’s impulsive. 

Coulson’s subtle. 

Clint’s lurid. 

Coulson’s diplomatic. 

Clint’s uncouth. 

Out of spite mostly, he doesn’t believe in complementary differences. That doesn’t stop him from thinking about the universe where he meets a woman watching a ballet as a guy with some extra cash in his pocket, because it’s probably in that same universe he could’ve worked with Coulson. And worked well, too. 

Some of his fuck ups are as simple as being caught in a storm. Others are as complicated as running away from the government agency that should’ve – maybe could’ve, if he’d held on a little longer – been his second chance. He’s almost always too late to fix them, and when he tries, it’s often as pointless as putting on a raincoat after the rain. 

If Clint and Coulson have anything in common, it’s that they’re under the same storm.

SHIELD doesn’t qualify. Not anymore. 

Whatever presence was at the entrance of the alley never actually walked into it, and Clint’s confusion quotient only increases. Boots hitting the ground, it seems about the time for him to stumble upon the stereotypically gnarled old man, so weathered by the elements and some tragic event that he’s cursed to give unwanted advice for the rest of his life. 

Instead, he hears a mew from a pile of discarded newspapers. 

Crouching down next to it, he peels back the top layer and gets scratched by vicious kitten claws for his troubles. 

“Ow, kitty, _no_ ,” Clint hisses, clutching his hand. 

The kitten hisses back. 

“Yeah, fine,” he says. “Enjoy your newspaper for now, but you can’t stay here. S’too cold.” 

He sighs and then resigns himself to even wetter jeans by sitting his ass on the ground and pulling out the iPhone he nabbed earlier from a whiny tourist. 

“Guess I’m gonna have to seduce you. Cat-style,” he frowns at the Google results for _What do hell beast kittens eat?_

If he had been using the same phone for the entire “trip,” he thinks _someone_ would’ve been concerned about his search history – obscure Moldovan poetry, equally obscure international proverbs, and the eating habits of kittens. 

This is what his life has come to. 

Patting the edge of the newspaper nest, he stands with a, “Back soon, Scratchy.”

The shifting paper appears very judgmental. 

Returning to an alley with a metric ton of cat supplies isn’t how Clint thought his day was going to go. He’s never made friends in an alley, but the rain has stopped, so it’s as good a start as any.

“Okay, let’s try this again,” he says, cracking open a can of wet food he was assured in a fusion of broken English and Serbian would be fine for the kitten’s estimated age. 

Suffice it to say, he doesn’t excel at eyeballing the ages of street cats, so he buys dry food, wet food, treats, and formula in a fit of _don’t kill the kitten_ madness. The can is set on a blanket halfway between the newspaper pile and Clint, who readies a treat in his hand from a bag he hopes promises trust in twenty minutes or less. 

It takes two and a half hours before he has a bundle of scrappy brown kitten in his arms, ridiculously big blue eyes staring dubiously up at him. 

Clint shrugs. “I grow on people. Don’t blame yourself.” 

Something must have grown on Coulson too because his bootprints are clearly visible on the stone wall behind him. 

Whether it’s sleep deprivation or his fascination with living things that don’t try to kill him, Clint brings the kitten back to his hotel room, where it’s napping in its blanket fortress at the foot of the bed. He’s stretched along the rest of it on his stomach, catching his breath from the marathon that is taking off wet clothes, looking at his temporary roommate. 

Their noses are a short distance away, and he’s tempted to brush his finger over the twitching brown nose and the ears that are too big for its head. The near content purring stops him. 

“Y’know,” Clint muses, taking in the spiky fur that’s thicker around the sides of the kitten’s face, “you kinda look like Wolverine.” 

A thought occurs to him then. One that isn’t so farfetched considering the shit he falls into regularly. 

Swallowing hard, he asks the kitten, a god he doesn’t believe in, himself, the ghost that’s been fucking with his shampoo – 

“…Logan?” 

Blue eyes crack open, utterly unimpressed. 

Lesser men would’ve screamed. Or begged for mercy. Clint is not a lesser man. He just does both internally. 

The Princess Bar in the Lowtown District of Madripoor was where he first met Logan, wearing an eyepatch no less – proving Clint’s eyepatch theory – and what he means by “met” is he avoided the guy’s stray fist in a misunderstanding turned barfight. He didn’t even get to see the claws. The second time Clint “met” Logan was at a bar in Whitehorse because he was on an all things Canada kick and also needed quick cash, which he got from watching Logan win a grand in a cage match and goading him into a game of pool afterward.

Clint felt so bad about it, he bought Logan a blowjob shot in apology. And a daiquiri. The punch to the jaw was worth it. 

“Soooo…are you secretly the grumpiest member of the X-men?”

Logan bites his chin, then licks it. 

Wrinkling his nose at the sandpaper texture, Clint decides they’re going to need some sort of code if they want to communicate. 

“Alright, dude. Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

The kitten sneezes. 

“Was that it?” he cries. 

And the kitten’s eyes are closed again. 

_Well, you sure do act like your human lookalike_ , Clint thinks with no small amount of indignation. 

“We’ll come back to that,” he warns, “Both of us can’t be the kind of people to sleep away our problems.” 

“Constant vigilance,” he mumbles, before laying his head back on the lumpy hotel pillow. 

Waking up to a pleasantly warm neck isn’t the strangest way he’s ever returned to consciousness, but it’s still up there. It only rises in rank when he registers that Logan’s made himself at home in the hollow of his throat. Huffing a breath, he watches the kitten’s pointy ear fur ruffle and brings a tentative hand to stroke down his back. 

“Comfy, huh,” Clint snorts, stopping the motion of his hand just to be given the gift of a startlingly hard kitten head butting his chin. 

Adamantium skull or asshole tendencies? They’re definitely not mutually exclusive. 

As much as he may want to, he can’t keep it – him, as Clint’s check confirms with one scratch sustained. The overlap of people who can keep plants alive and people who can keep pets alive is high, and Clint’s certain he once murdered a fern just by looking at it too long. By that logic, this kitten is in danger. He’s dangerous to kittens. Factor in his current situation, the kitten’s fate is virtually sealed. 

But. 

It’s possible the human-Logan pissed off a witch, another mutant, and/or incorrectly answered a riddle, so it would be irresponsible of Clint to let hypothetical Logan-turned-kitten out of his sight. 

That logic outweighs kitten danger logic. 

Yes, he and responsibility will coexist. 

Until Clint goes into allergic shock or something. 

He’s got selfish reasons for wanting to keep the cat too. Though that’s just human nature. Right now, with the uneven beard, brown hair, and sleepless eyes, Clint looks a lot like his brother. Barney’s hair was red while in Waverly, but once they left for the circus, he started dyeing it brown – in no small part he’d guess because their father used to accuse their mother of cheating because of his hair color – and it didn’t hurt to have less conspicuous hair on jobs. Clint’s always resembled their mother the most. Now, in his _evading the law_ disguise, all he can see is Barney staring back at him. Avoiding mirrors may seem like overkill, but if he starts to look longer, he’s going to recognize the one other person that was supposed to love him but didn’t. 

Clint has no time for ghosts, especially ones that aren’t shampoo-related. 

Doing the right thing by this cat – potentially turned person – helps. 

Besides, he’s no good at being alone. 

Coulson beats him to the seventh body. He’s going to have to shoot the competent bastard now. Dammit. 

When Clint first got his bow from SHIELD R and D, he was supposed to sit through a lecture on each of the arrowheads equipped in his quiver. Skipping it was first instinct, but second nature won out in favor of knowing what was strapped on his back. 

It takes six spins of the rotary dial on his bow for the quiver to screw the tranquilizer arrowhead onto the end of the arrow shaft. 

The arrowhead is a thin cylinder about half the length of his pinky coated with a heavy-duty adhesive, so it sticks to the target to release the very scary needle. 

“Whataya think?” Clint murmurs to Logan who’s riding in a pocket he sewed on the front of his tac jacket using Coulson’s floss. 

That’s a third use for floss to add to his nonexistent list. 

Nocking the arrow and raising to take aim in one fluid motion slows his heartbeat down in the way everything familiar does. This will be his first long-range shot in the field – he’s a thousand yards away on a church spire from where Coulson is in the gardens of the Patriarchate Court, it’s dark out, and he’s partly relying on the thermal imaging in his fancy set of tinted glasses – and he’s grateful for the compound bow even though he almost always prefers a recurve. 

Holding his draw, he singsongs, “Bet I know what you’d do.”

“You’d go on down there, gut him, and say somethin’ like ‘it’s business, bub,’ but the guy would already be dead.” 

Clint smirks as he adjusts his aim half a millimeter to the left and two degrees downward. “Then you’d go on a craft beer spiral fueled by the whole ‘all I know is the kill’ mentality.”

Most people in the life do some version of that; Clint’s is junk food and depression naps. 

“Rinse and repeat,” he breathes out, loosing the arrow, relishing in the brief kiss of air and the release of the string that for only a second thuds with the life of his pulse. 

He drops his arm and looks down at a sleeping kitten. 

“Or you’d sleep because you’re just a _cat_ and I haven’t talked to another living soul that hasn’t tried to kill me in a month,” he says lamely, beginning to pick his way down from his perch. 

His next conundrum, excluding his present mental state – and it isn’t pulling the cardstock out of Zofia Nowak’s throat – is if he should remove the arrow from Coulson’s nape. The damage is done and the shot even without the arrow as evidence is enough of a calling card, but Clint feels…Avril Lavigne about all of this: complicated. 

Coulson’s not a bad guy, and he might wake up in not as much pain if Clint pulls the arrow out. 

Putting a hand over Logan’s eyes, he says wryly, “Gotta protect your innocence.”

_Cat innocence_ , he thinks. Kitten + innocence =

“Kittocence,” Clint whispers, hating himself. 

He yanks on the arrow shaft. Gently. 

For some reason, he thought the arrow would look how it usually does when he has the time to get them out of targets, but the needle is just extended, not soaked in blood or eyeball, so it’s carefully placed back in his quiver. 

Leaving with the card is the ultimate exit strategy. 

The ultimate exit strategy did _not_ plan for Clint’s guilt. He checks Coulson’s pulse, breathing, and that he has gloves on. And then – 

“Dolce, good for you, Sir,” he says, pulling the winter coat off Coulson to get to his suit jacket, which starts to rival manhandling someone’s face to look less dead in difficulty before he finally succeeds.

Stuffing the suit jacket under Coulson’s head, Clint puts him back in his coat. It’s chilly, and he’s already nailed Coulson in the back of the neck with a drug that guarantees a hangover, he rationalizes. The least he can do, really, when he knows Coulson has the skills to deftly keep up. 

More importantly, when he knows Romanova has saved the worst for last, and he has to get there before SHIELD. 

What Hawkeye will do when it’s just him and the Black Widow has steadily changed from “kill her or don’t,” to what she wants him to do. 

There could be a difference, and he’ll give it to her. 

But he can’t give Coulson the edge of the card. 

_Opportunity bears the thief._

Marko Banionis will soon be in Hungary. 

It’s not until Clint steps into Tolna that he realizes Romanova has spelled out “BUDAPEST” with the countries and cities she’s been dragging his ass through. 

He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry hysterically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for all your awesome comments. They make my day. I'll be responding later as I thought you'd like Chapter 9 first.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter demanded little pieces of my soul for every word I wrote, I am soulless now, and enjoy.

Clint’s belief in the sanctity of splitting the difference is how he chooses to laugh hysterically rather than just laugh. Or cry. Or cry hysterically.

To this day, that’s all he remembers of Tolna: a half-assed emotional breakdown caused by a defecting Red Room operative while he had a kitten riding shotgun in the front pocket of his sweatshirt.

Sárbogárd, Hungary he would never forget.

Because that’s where the end began.

Of more things than one.

He’s not here to look around, so Sárbogárd only has a surprisingly extensive fishing museum and a train station, the latter being his ticket to Budapest, and the former a way to kill time until his departure.

The train station appears to be one snowstorm away from collapse – squatty, peeling paint, graffiti – and a small, dark interior lined with only a few benches and the ticket counter.

There’s still thirty minutes left before boarding, and Clint’s paranoia is through the roof. He can’t figure out why. It’s partly because he’s smuggling a kitten, and more so because he feels an unprecedented need to move – but that in and of itself is disconcerting since his livelihood relies on patience and he’s _good_ at waiting. His body must know something his brain doesn’t. Taking the time to glance up from his phone more often than a disgruntled traveler would is too risky in such a cramped space – the less attention he draws to himself right now, the better – so he’s timed his quick snatches of observation.

Sárbogárd’s station happens to be an intersection of important railroad routes, leaving it filled with enough people.

But not enough that he misses Barney and Trick Shot sitting not forty feet away from him.

Just like that, Clint’s sixteen again, lying face down in a ditch, blood and dirt in his mouth, unable to move and so convinced that if he took a deep breath, it would be his last. Barney’s stood over him, twisting the arrow in his left shoulder blade, saying the words he never expected to come out of his brother’s mouth, though maybe he should’ve –

Logan’s furry head bumps his clammy hands where they’re knotted in the pocket of his sweatshirt, his heart is beating so hard that his chest hurts with it, and he barely manages to stroke a delicate finger over the side of Logan’s face.

Sometimes he thinks how unfair it is Barney elicits this kind of reaction from him, and how Barney would probably revel in Clint’s palpable torment, but the part of him that’s Hawkeye, the assassin, the _World’s Greatest Marksman_ , knows he has to treat these moments like a mission, his brother like a target, and his fear like the thing that’s going to keep him awake because it’s smarter to be afraid than to get scared.

So he turns off his inconvenient other half: the one that sees his brother and sort of-mentor and starts to watch them for what they are.

Marks.

Barney’s sitting to the left of an older man in tinted glasses similar to Clint’s, not elderly, possibly mid-forties. Close enough that he discerns they’re traveling together. Trick is directly behind the older man on another bench, the scar Clint gave him on the back of his neck visible in the cold lighting. They’re flanking him at odd angles, but he’s got a creeping theory on why the man’s right side is surreptitiously open. His chance to test it comes a minute later when Barney leans over and whispers something about “the can.” The man nods smoothly, and Barney stands. A beat after he leaves, Trick gets up, making for Barney’s vacated seat. Clint’s only got a handful of seconds to do what he needs to do, so he crumbles a small scrap of paper and balances it on his bended knee. Trick’s just rounding the end of the benches to the other side when Clint flicks the paper. It sails past the periphery of the man’s left eye. Not even a minute twitch.

Barney’s not the man’s left hand. He’s the man’s _left eye._

Marko Banionis hired muscle for his invitation to the Black Widow’s death party.

Clint hopes with his whole fucked up heart she has a plan for that.

Once the train is boarded, he tips his glasses down so he can stop seeing everything through a purple lens. His favorite color doesn’t need to be ruined. They’re all in the third car, Clint as far behind Banionis, Trick, and Barney as he can get while still being able to watch them in their bay of four seats. Fortunately for Clint, Barney’s turned away from him, but Trick and Banionis are right in his line of vision – he’s not worried about Trick recognizing him when he looks like this, though given enough time, Barney would – and he leans his head against the train window, feigning sleep.

He understands, after getting the chance to study Banionis’s face uninterrupted through scarcely cracked eyes, why no one has ever gotten a concrete description: Marko Banionis looks like everyone and no one all at once – the kind of average that if he put effort into it, he could be attractive, but if he didn’t, there wouldn’t be a second glance. His brown hair isn’t dark nor light, he’s not tall, he’s not short, and even the classic signs of age aren’t enough to base a reliable profile on. The eyes behind those glasses are his only defining characteristic, and he’s clever to cover them.

It also happens to be a point in Clint’s favor because Banionis wouldn’t be hiding them if there wasn’t something to notice.

Vespas, or the Hungarian version of Vespas, are not made to carry Clint’s six feet and three inches. In winter no less. With a perpetually irritated kitten in tow. But when your brother, the guy who taught you your one marketable skill, and an infamous human trafficker have a car waiting for them at the Budapest Keleti railway station, desperate times involve subjecting yourself to the desperate measure of contorting yourself onto an outrageously small scooter.

And the cash you have left in your _you’ve fucked up cash fund_ wasn’t enough to rent a car.

Petronia was the one who taught him how to drive. Looking back, he doesn’t know why he thought that lesson was going to be normal. For one, she was teaching him at the ripe old age of twelve, two, she showed him how to drive a stick shift with his knees while telling him the correct way to shoot out someone’s tires, and three – the tamest – how to tail.

“There is an art to following a car, Clinton,” she had said with all the seriousness of a former World War II spy. “It’s like killing a man with your bare hands: you have to know when to push harder and when to draw back.”

Nodding behind the front seat of a purple 1970 Dodge Challenger where he could only just reach the pedals was all he could do.

In Clint’s line of work, tailing vehicles is such a rare prerequisite to shooting someone in the eye or neck – and by rare he means he hasn’t tailed another car since he was twelve – that he’s a _little_ rusty even with Petronia’s advice in mind.

Well, it can’t be _that_ hard.

“ _That_ hard” turns out to be generous, Clint’s disarmed bombs easier than this. And Logan’s yowling isn’t helping.

“Do you wanna drive, you ingrate?” he yells over the wind and cacophony of Budapest traffic.

Barney or Trick sure as shit aren’t driving because whatever the hell this driver’s doing to weave around other drivers, parked cars, and pedestrians, is a fucking miracle in motion and he would love to know. At least they drive on the right side of the road in Hungary since he would be especially screwed otherwise.

Twenty minutes later – that rival the car ride with Coulson and Rumlow in hellishness – they’re in central Budapest, pulling up to a building that looks suspiciously like an opera house. One that seems to be hosting a rich people party. Christ. This is Monte Carlo all over again. But he knew what he was walking into there, despite the plot twist ending.

“She’s nothing if not consistent,” Clint mutters to himself as he leads the scooter over to a side street so he can keep an eye on the proceedings.

Banionis, Trick, and Barney exit the car decked in evening dress code: white ties, wingtip collars, and black dress coats with tails worn over white shirts. From here, he can tell Barney’s eager for something, while Trick is homed in on the job, for now. It’s typical. Barney’s situational awareness only kicks in when there’s a gun to his head.

Clint is woefully underdressed, but he’s willing to bet most of his hypothetical mental money that he’s better armed. That solves about a fourth of his problems. Now, where to get new clothes…

Climbing on top of an SUV so the driver doesn’t hear you is an exercise in stealth Clint didn’t know he needed. He can smell the cigarette smoke from where he’s crouched on the roof of the car, meaning it’s only a matter of time before the driver needs to roll down the window to ash it, or get rid of it altogether. Hearing the crack of the window, he braces himself on two fingers of each hand, raising his legs in the air until he’s completely vertical. Logan mews in protest.

“Coulda had Romanova for a mother, Lo.’ You’re fine,” Clint says under his breath, hooking his thumbs in the now open window, and brings his legs down in a swinging curl, feet connecting with face connecting with passenger seat headrest.

He drops down onto the sidewalk and runs a quick hand over Logan’s head where he’s riding in the makeshift pocket on his tac jacket.

“If she didn’t eat you first. Or line her boots with you.”

Thankfully, the driver is dressed on par for a party he isn’t actually going to, Clint discovers when rifling through the car and checking the guy’s pulse. Alive – which is a toss-up on how good that is depending on if the driver knows who his employer truly is.

Either way, it leaves him tasked with undressing an unconscious, grown-ass man.

Great.

Let it be said that Clint Barton is not an art thief, but over the past couple months, he’s found two things that are harder than stealing a painting: manhandling a guy’s face to look less dead and removing Coulson’s coat and suit jacket from his drugged-out body.

Stripping an unconscious man to his boxers for his clothes and shoes blows them out of the water and on to a different continent.

The process of putting them on is not one he wants to dignify with words.

Taking the pack of cigarettes out of the dress coat pocket, he mock-admonishes, “S’bad habits like this that get you kicked in the face, buddy.”

Logan bites his finger in agreement.

Neo-Renaissance style architecture and winter are not conducive to scaling buildings. Clint decides to brave the whole potentially braining himself on the pavement and/or a pilaster thing because he figures the invitations have inscribed names and he’s not about to scratch one out and write Francis Bon-Bon instead. That’s how his bank account for that alias was frozen in the first place.

But he’s an expert at not falling when he really should, so he’s up on the topmost level in no time, wrestling with an icy window.

“Why, why, _why_ ,” Clint groans, knocking his forehead against cool stonework.

Cajoling Logan to gnaw the window open isn’t going to work as long as it isn’t made of Clint’s flesh, and breaking it is also a no-go – he can’t afford to be kicked out before Romanova makes her final move.

It’s in the search for his lighter that he finds Coulson’s forgotten floss at the bottom of the left pocket in his tac jacket.

“Aw, floss, yes,” he grins, and starts to the line the window frame with it.

Then he flicks his lighter.

Okay, dental floss is flammable. That’s a fourth use for floss on his nonexistent list.

Thank you, Coulson.

With the ice around the window melted, he throws it open, assuming there’s going to be an alarm whether he hears it or not. Booking it down a marble hallway, he realizes he needs somewhere to stash Logan and his rucksack until –

Until what?

Is he even coming back from this?

Logan stays asleep as Clint arranges him in his sweatshirt nest in the side room he’d stumbled upon dodging security. He’s half thinking about the existence of kitten narcolepsy and how he doesn’t have time to Google it, and the danger of putting a creature like Logan in the same general location as explosives.

“Alright, okay, alright,” he rambles, eventually moving away from Logan to hide his quiver in a wardrobe across the space.

If a cat can somehow open a latch and chew through SHIELD-grade fabric and polymers, then he can damn well have the explosives. The bow he keeps on him since it can collapse to about the length of his hand.

Crossing the room back to the loveseat he’s settled Logan on, Clint kneels to bumps their foreheads together, and promptly sees tolerant blue eyes blinking open.

“I have ta’ go now, Lo. Be good, or whatever version of good you can pull off,” Clint clears his throat. “I’ll be – I’ll be right back.”

“And if I don’t come back,” he says, absentmindedly stroking Logan’s face fur, “You can go home, okay? Sorry I kinda catnapped you.”

He gets another bite and lick to the chin for his emotional speech.

The Budapest Opera Ball, of which Clint is apparently in attendance, is what would happen if someone shoved a stick up Monte Carlo’s ass. He’s impressed with the finery of Hungarian high society in the way he’s impressed with tigers, or even the Black Widow: they’re beautiful, but he doesn’t want to be stuck in an enclosed environment with them because he likes his face where it is. Hundreds of debutantes are dancing in white cupcake dresses around the transformed stage and auditorium in billowing circles, so he’s missed the arias. Not that he has an ear for opera anyway. Though he hasn’t missed the first waltz of the ball guests after the performance of the debutantes. His hyperawareness in places like these is messing with him; he hasn’t seen anyone who’s tried to kill him, he’s trying to kill, or is trying to kill someone else.

They have to be closer than he accounted for – he doesn’t just _lose_ people in crowds – or else his mask of jaded boredom patented by the obscenely wealthy is going to go to waste. And there’s only so much champagne he can pretend to drink, and origami cranes he can fold out of cocktail napkins.

From the wraparound balcony, Clint finally spies Barney down on the ballroom floor, but he’s not with Banionis. He’s near a woman with her blonde-gray hair swept in a low chignon. Next is a foreign dignitary, a debutante, then a male model –

Twelve origami cranes later when Barney isn’t paying attention, it’s a brief glimpse of a man with brown hair, a scruffy beard, and a scar over the bridge of his nose.

To anyone else, it’d probably look like a trick of the light. But Clint knows what he saw: his own face flashed back at him.

Silver lining is that Barney stands to the left of each new person.

Or one person with many faces.

No wonder there aren’t any confirmed demographics on Marko Banionis – why there _really_ aren’t.

Jokes on him for thinking Banionis’s glasses mattered. They were just another evasion tactic.

He’s a shapeshifter.

Stepping away from the balcony into someone’s shoulder isn’t the best part of his day, but when the best part of his day was technically getting bitten by Logan, the comparison makes it all the more depressing. That it’s _Trick’s_ shoulder he accidentally body checks is the Clint Barton brand of good luck.

“Watch it, boy,” Trick grouches.

Clint almost has a heart attack right there – Trick never called Clint by his name, so Clint never called him by his. But Trick couldn’t possibly recognize him with his new look.

Could he?

Holding his hands up in surrender, Clint moves back toward the relative safety of the balcony.

Only for Trick to amble up next to him.

“The women here are somethin’ huh,” Trick leers, making an obscene gesture with his hands.

Disgust must be evident on Clint’s face because Trick side-eyes him with a snort.

“Ain’t you Europeans supposed’ta be all sex enlightened?” he asks.

Shrugging and grunting simultaneously is just to stall. He doesn’t think Trick is going to take silence for an answer, but maybe it’ll get him to go away all the same.

In Clint’s experience, Trick doesn’t go away when you want him to.

“C’mon,” Trick cajoles, “anyone here you wanna…”

Cue another rude hand gesture that also tragically migrates to his hips.

Fucking Christ. Clint’s life.

Anyone at a party like this is already beautiful or has enough money to be. Priority dictates Clint not really giving a shit about either, though he scans the crowd anyway.

Nine seconds is all it takes before he spots his third favorite redhead – behind Jacquotte Delahaye and Ginger Spice – standing alone in an opera box, dark red hair in long, tight ringlets, half-up, half-down, and emerald green dress painted to her body. It’s good timing at it’s finest.

“Her,” Clint says, inclining his head at Romanova. He’s not great at disguising his voice, so he ends up sounding like the child of a Russian and German man trying to teach their Dutch son an Italian accent.

Trick makes an approving noise in his throat. “Redheads always like it fuckin’ dirty.”

“Bit out of your league, isn’t she?” Clint asks, giving Trick an unimpressed glance.

“Bit” is an understatement, but he’s got a plan for the first time in months that isn’t “follow the defecting Red Room operative.”

“Fuck no. I could get her,” Trick says.

“Could you?” Clint says. Then, “Care for a wager?”

Watching Trick’s eyes move between Barney and Banionis on the ballroom floor and Romanova up high, Clint’s a little taken aback by how terrible Trick looks. Sure he’s in a fancy suit, but the alcohol consumption over the years has clearly gotten to him. His face is swollen, he’s gained weight, and his skin is yellow. Liver failure. The man’s on borrowed time if that’s the case. Clint knows Trick’s vices and patterns better than most, and he’s still surprised this is how he’s choosing to spend it.

Impending death will do that, he guesses: change you completely or not at all.

“You’re on, boy,” Trick says, slapping the balcony rail.

Whether Romanova is just that good at seduction or Trick is just that easy – it’s probably both – she’s leading him by the tie with a demure giggle away from the balcony in no time. Down on the ballroom floor, Barney and Banionis have disappeared from Clint’s sight. What he’s waiting for he doesn’t know –

That’s when the opera house is plunged into darkness.

Ignoring shrieks and gasps, Clint shoves his shades with thermal imaging on his face and makes a break for the staircase. He counts it as a win he only trips twice on the way up to the room he sequestered Logan.

Even with the thermal imaging, he almost brains himself in his haste getting the wardrobe doors open and to his quiver. Strapping it on his back and snapping his bow open, he finds himself hovering over Logan again. Besides himself – and that’s debatable – Clint’s never taken care of something before. Most of his life has consisted of people wanting things from him he didn’t think he wanted to give but did anyway. It’s nice to know he’s capable of freely offering the best parts of himself to someone else that, if anything, _needs_ him. Love is selfish like that.

So is family, and it’s time for Clint to go face his.

Staticky sounds start long before the lights actually flicker on, so Clint doesn’t have a repeat of Kyiv. He’s moved down two floors and still nothing. When he’s this paranoid, everything has judgmental stares – the bronze chandelier, the fat cherubs on the ceiling, the ornate doorknobs – and he feels a distinctive pressure mounting in the air, waiting to be released. That’s how he ducks the arrow aimed at the back of his head. The same doesn’t go for the ones that pierce his left and right biceps.

“Fuck,” Clint breathes, sparing a second he definitely doesn’t have to look down at the fletching on the arrows. Red. Barney’s.

If the maniacal laughter following his shots hadn’t already given him away.

Diving behind a pillar, he presses his back against the cool stone, focusing on his breathing and his pulse that’s somehow taken up shop in his ears. But he’s a sniper, knowing how to force his heartrate down is an essential skill. Adrenaline will work against him there. For pulling out the arrows, it’s going to be his natural painkiller. Prying the heads off with his third favorite knife, he grasps the first shaft with a bloody hand, teeth gritted. Depending on where you’re hit, getting shot with a bullet is easier even if it’s a different kind of pain. There’s zero chance of a through and through with an arrow.

Barney always liked that about the bow.

Unable to feel his arms, Clint rotates through his quiver until he gets to the arrowhead that releases a localized smoke bomb.

“Return fire, fucker,” Clint glares, somersaulting out from his hiding spot and shooting up onto the third-floor landing.

Immediately, he hears the beautiful sounds of coughing and shouting, and Clint has cover to head toward the window. Subtlety has left the building and booked a flight to the Cayman Islands at this point, so he wraps his hand in his destroyed dress coat and punches through the glass.

_Futzing ow_ , Clint thinks, blaming the blood loss on not breaking the glass with his bow or _the wide array of explosives attached to his back_. MacGyvering with Coulson’s floss would’ve been better than what he did.

Scaling Neo-Renaissance style architecture in winter is not, in fact, made easier with actively bleeding arm wounds, but it’s only a one-floor climb until he’s at a bay of windows. The smoke has largely dissipated, so Clint can see Barney lurking around the blind spot by the staircase, Romanova being pinned by Trick with an arrow in her calf, and Banionis back in the form he joined the party in, holding two pistols.

“This is what real-life Clue is like, isn’t it?” he mumbles to himself, readying a sonic arrowhead.

He kicks the window in since he learns from his mistakes and releases the arrow to bank off two columns, a vase, and Trick’s bow case before it wedges itself in the infinitesimal seam of the eastern marble wall.

The sound and force of the sonic decibels have Clint’s ears ringing even after retreating as far as he could on the ledge. Shielding his eyes from the shattering glass, he cracks one open to watch as everyone but Romanova drops their weapons to cover their ears. A consummate professional. She spins on one foot to face Barney, throwing a knife strapped to her thigh to cut the cord he’s using to strap his quiver to his leg. Arrows spill with a clatter while she faces Trick once more. Hauling him up off his knees, Romanova rests another knife to his throat and holds her position.

Banionis starts to reach for his pistols, ears bleeding, and it’s time for Clint to stop waiting, even though he’d rather continue his impression of a gargoyle indefinitely.

Clint jumps through the window with two standard arrows - that he secretly likes to call “the really fucking sharps ones” – already nocked, his boots sounding his arrival with a satisfying thump on the marble floor. But not so satisfying as seeing the shock and vague confusion settle over the room and its occupants. Romanova the usual exception.

Sending the pistols into a far corner with a knock of his foot, he levels his bow at Banionis and tries to think of something witty and scathing to say, and Barney, the bastard, beats him to it.

“Look at you, baby brother. All grown up.”

Last time Clint heard _baby brother_ –

_“Only one way this is gonna end, baby brother. It's in my blood, an' now yours. One'a us is gonna hafta kill the other. An' I ain't gonna stop until it happens.”_

– he was dying in an alley. Because the one person he has left that should love him…

Doesn’t.

“Kill them,” he hears Banionis say distantly. “Kill them both for all I care. That leaves you and me, little girl. You wouldn’t know how to kill me.”

Not so distantly, Clint hears the rumble of feet fast approaching their landing. Six black-clad figures carrying M-16s file into the space, six more come through the blown-out windows, releasing their belay lines. SHIELD Strike insignia. Shit. Twelve red laser sights. Double shit.

Coulson’s climbing the stairs, easy as you please, only for Barney to snatch a gun out of some interdimensional pocket behind him and press it to the back of Coulson’s head. He pulls it off solely because of the staircase’s blind spot – Coulson’s a former Ranger for fuck’s sake – and Coulson can’t chance a move with the contact and unknown shooter. At least not yet.

Triple shit espresso.

“Hands where I can see ‘em,” Barney snarls.

Mouth twitching, Coulson raises his hands horizontal to his body with a calm “Hold your fire” to the Strike Team.

That’s not an order Strike Team Alpha is used to. Clint hopes Rumlow is _pissed_ behind his stupid balaclava. Is Rumlow here? The guy with the square-shaped head looks like Rollins –

“Barton?” Coulson squints, or whatever the G-man version of squinting is.

“Um,” Clint says. “No?”

Then to really sell it, he looks over his shoulder as if Coulson could possibly be talking to anyone else.

There. Master of subterfuge.

Coulson’s lips purse, but he nods decisively as if he planned for Clint’s presence here all along.

“Pardon me,” Banionis says, dabbing his ears with a handkerchief, “but I do believe…”

It hits Clint sometimes like it’s hitting him right now – after the first eight words he’s heard from Barney in eight years, amid a SHIELD Strike Team, and one of the world’s worst criminals monologuing – that he’s never been able to trust his eyes when it comes to his brother. Out of the two them, Clint thought Barney was the one who felt comfortable in his skin, who fit in anywhere, who was held back by his baby brother.

His eyes lied for all those years he looked at his brother from afar. It’s a betrayal from Clint’s favorite sense that he didn’t expect but should’ve when he suddenly has the realization eight years too late that Barney didn’t have an older brother to get a purple Hot Wheels car from, he didn’t have an older brother to identify the remains of their parents for him, and he didn’t have an older brother to begrudgingly take care of him for sixteen years until the day he decided to stop.

While it may be true that _both_ Barney and Clint have never felt like they belonged anywhere, Barney’s resentment isn’t Clint’s fault. But Clint loves his brother in the way you love things that are bad for you: for a multitude of reasons that aren’t so great when you look at them one by one.

Meeting Barney’s eyes, Clint says, “Kept that stupid toy car you gave me when I was six. It’s still one of my favorite things. M’sorry, Barney.”

He doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. Everything. Nothing.

What he’s about to do.

“Clint –”

When Clint was in the hospital and had exhausted himself with daytime television, the nurses had smuggled him some magazines. Somehow, an old medical journal was thrown in the mix. Most of it went over his head, but he remembers the principle of Occam’s razor. Your first instinct is usually the right instinct. As in, a single, simple explanation for a patient’s symptoms is often the correct conclusion.

Clint’s first instinct, his correct conclusion, his Occam’s razor is this: Clint could exist in a world that had Barney in it. But Barney couldn’t exist in a world that had Clint.

That leaves one ending.

One brother alive.

One brother dead.

It’s not that he thinks his life is worth more than Barney’s. Not at all. The difference is that Barney has a gun held to Coulson’s head, and Clint won’t let Coulson die because of his brother’s vendetta. Survival is what Clint does. He _has_ to believe that after all these years, he’s held on for something.

Dying by his brother’s hand isn’t in Clint’s cards. 

Physically, it’s going to be one of the easier – if not the easiest – shots he’s ever taken with the intent to kill. Short distance, good sightlines, other material variables manageable. Emotionally, he’s never felt so acutely what it’s like to stand in a liminal space. In the next few minutes, Clint’s life is going to be defined by the time before he killed his brother…and after. 

He just has to cross the threshold. 

Let go of the arrow. 

But first, he looks over at Romanova, standing silently by the building’s fuse box, absolutely unbothered with keeping a knife to Trick’s throat. 

The wisdom that “no man is an island” is wrong. Everyone’s an island. Nuance comes into play when you realize some islands have bridges, speedboats, or are rooted in populated waters – they have modes of connection, but they’re still fundamentally alone. And no one knows that better than Clint Barton and Natalia Romanova. So when Clint looks at her, really looks at her for only the second time in his life, and all he sees is a young, untethered woman, he wills her to understand that hope is a proximity game – sometimes you don’t know you have choices until they’re staring you down in a Hungarian opera house surrounded by a SHIELD STRIKE Team after a seven-man killing spree. 

Or reaching for your hand in an alley in Barcelona. 

Romanova must get that Clint’s offering something because the lights go out not a moment later. 

He looses two arrows in the dark, his arms numb, eyes stinging, to the sound of Coulson’s second “Hold your fire!” 

And the last words he’ll ever say to his brother echoing in his head. 

Two Natalia Romanova’s stare at him from across the room. Banionis must have shifted while the lights were off, and as disturbing as that is, it forces Clint to focus on the living, not on the arrow in Barney’s right eye and the one in Trick Shot’s neck. Hawkeye doesn’t waste his time on shots to the heart. It already feels like Clint has a projectile protruding from his chest. 

Coulson and the STRIKE Team are stock-still, the air around them suspended, but Clint can’t simply rely on his eyes for this one when Banionis has even mimicked Romanova’s leg injury. He’s going to have to out on an unsteady limb – the indefinite flare of familiarity he thought he saw before Romanova hit the lights. 

“Cute,” Clint says, drawing a tranquilizer arrow. “Y’know I can just kill both of you.” 

Twin silences. Predictable. 

“But I would never want to accuse a woman such as yourself of…inaction.” 

Romanova-on-the-left smirks and takes a step forward. 

_Wrong answer._

Romanova-on-the-right gives him a lifeless baring of teeth and murmurs, “Is this my turn?” 

_Found you_ , he thinks. 

She’s barely finished when Clint sinks a tranq arrow into Romanova-on-the-left’s forehead. 

Banionis’s body falls to the ground in a glitching blur, revealing a man so decrepit Clint’s not sure he’s still alive. Using the tranq arrow was supposed to be so Banionis could be subjected to SHIELD’s idea of justice because Clint shooting him in the eye is a mercy he doesn’t deserve. And Clint already killed the two men who might know anything about his operation. 

Walking over, he spots the almost imperceptible rise and fall of Banionis’s chest. Good. For now. SHIELD will need to extract intel before they lock him up with only his mind for company. Or Clint will kill him. Slowly. 

The real Romanova is staring at Banionis’s face with a look he guesses is the closest she’ll ever get to haunted in public. She has a claim on Banionis’s life too, though Clint’s surprised she’s still here. Maybe he shouldn’t be if Romanova truly wants to be put down. Maybe she thought he was offering her death moments ago. Maybe. 

Might as well find out. 

“Do you wanna go?” Clint asks her. “I’d let you leave.” 

This time, Romanova’s flash of teeth looks more like the smile a hunter would give a baby deer. Clint doesn’t want to be the baby deer in this scenario. 

Futz, he feels dizzy. 

“You may,” she says, eyes scanning over the occupants of the room. Assessing. “They won’t.” 

A hand signal from Coulson has the STRIKE Team dispersing, save for two members. 

Clint wouldn’t put it past Romanova to be able to escape a twelve-person STRIKE Team with the lights on and no weapons in hand. 

Coulson clears his throat and gives her a bland smile. 

“Miss Romanova, I’m Agent Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. I’ve been authorized to offer you a job.” 

Her next expression he can’t read, but she does say, “Have you enjoyed my résumé?” 

For some reason, that has Clint glancing down at his arms. The arms still gushing blood. 

Aw, arms, no. 

_Silly arms, the floor doesn’t need blood_ , he thinks. 

“SHIELD has real good dental,” Clint says to no one in particular. 

And promptly passes out. 

Waking up unrestrained has just become the best part of Clint’s day. If it’s the day he thinks it is. It could be the best part of his new day. And that day is…

“Awake, Barton?” a voice asks. 

Mouth cottony, he smacks his lips together. “No, but I could get there.” 

The state of his mouth and the numbness in his arms leads him to believe he’s been drugged. Clint doesn’t like drugs. He likes Gatorade. If he asks the voice nicely, maybe he’ll get some Gatorade. 

There’s a hum, then footsteps, and the sound of something being set down in front of him. 

His lap is warm, he hopes he hasn’t pissed himself. The voice would probably be mad. 

“Barton, open your eyes.” 

“Can’t,” Clint whines. “What if I’m dead.” 

“You’re not dead." 

“Oh,” he frowns. “Okay.” 

Opening his eyes, Clint takes in several things at once despite being drugged to the gills: he’s on a quinjet, Logan’s on his lap (whew, not piss), and Coulson got him some Powerade (good enough). 

“You didn’t kill me,” Clint says. 

Apparently, it’s Coulson’s turn to frown or do something with his face that isn’t abject neutrality. This is extremely disturbing for Clint because he’s only seen two and a half expressions on his face before right now. 

“Why would I kill you?” 

He flaps his arm around trying to reach for his Powerade. And, ow. Look at that, his arms are bandaged. Coulson reaches for the drink instead and cracks the lid open. The bottle is brought to his lips and Clint takes greedy swallows of Mountain Berry Blast. 

“Not _you_ , you. SHIELD you.” 

Coulson inhales and exhales measuredly. “Fine. Why would SHIELD kill you?” 

“Dunno, all this,” Clint sighs, rotating his head since his arms are incapacitated. “You sent me to kill a scary lady to kill me too, you lied about Rumlow, I made you chase me through Europe again. Blah, blah, blah.” 

There’s a G-man groan that comes from Coulson’s direction. 

Clint’s starting to think all this loud breathing in his direction isn’t allergies. People might be frustrated. With him. A novel concept, really. 

Forcing himself into Clint’s line of vision, Coulson levels him with _a look_. 

“Barton, no one’s trying to kill you. The Black Widow Operation was issued by the WSC as a takedown mission, but the Director wanted more time to “woo” Miss Romanova to our allegiances. Fury was prepared for the long haul, the WSC not so much.” 

“WSC?” Clint asks. 

“World Security Council,” Coulson replies. “Fury’s bosses.” 

“That’s terrifying Fury has bosses.” 

“You can imagine how often he listens to them,” Coulson says dryly. 

Logan deigns to wake up at his reluctant laughter, indignant as ever. He pets him anyway because that’s unconditional love on pain medication. 

“So no killing? Or firing?” 

“No firing and no killing. In fact, you’re being promoted.” 

What? 

Aloud, Clint says, “What?” 

“You brought in the Black Widow, Barton. You’ll need the clearance to look after your stray,” Coulson says, lips quirking. 

_Who’s looking after me?_ he thinks dejectedly. 

He has to look after the Black Widow, Logan, _and_ his bottle of Powerade – 

“And,” Coulson starts, interrupting Clint’s train of thought, “I’m sorry we made you think we were out to kill you. Fury was trying to pawn the op off as a show of good faith and that obviously didn’t translate.” 

At that, his train of thought is blown up with C-4. 

“You’re _sorry_?” 

No one’s ever apologized to him before and his face is feeling suspiciously warm. 

“Yes,” Coulson frowns again, or he’s constipated – maybe he needs some Powerade. “It must have been a weight on your shoulders.” 

Yeah, no shit. 

Not knowing what to say, he looks back down at Logan and his bandaged arms. 

“Should I ask about the cat?” 

Smiling, Clint says, “No.” 

But – 

“How’d you find him?” 

“That cat was making sounds I didn’t know felines could make,” Coulson snorts. “When we finally found him, he was chewing holes in your rucksack.” 

Of course he was. 

“Course you were,” Clint says, poking the side of Logan’s face as he eyes Clint’s bandages with an interest that typically precedes chewing. 

Motioning at his bandages, Coulson says, “You should make a full recovery, barring you don’t take off on another European grand tour with a notorious Russian spy.” 

“Hey, it wasn’t _with_ her. I was _following_ her." 

Clint pauses abruptly, confused. “You followed _me_. Why.” 

“I didn’t think you’d run off without a reason,” he says. 

“Why.” 

Coulson gives a minute raise of his shoulders. “I believe in you.” 

“ _Why_.” 

“Barton, you’re the best at what you do and smarter than anyone gives you credit for. You had your reasons. But I knew I had to convince you why they were wrong,” Coulson smirks. 

“More importantly,” he continues, “I used up all my airline miles on you. I’m personally invested now.” 

“You have all your airline miles because of me,” Clint mutters. 

The laugh that bubbles out of Coulson seems to startle both of them. 

“Get some rest, Specialist,” Coulson says, standing from his crouch and patting Clint’s knee. 

“Uh, Sir, one more thing. What happened to Rumlow?” 

He’s equally as startled to see Coulson’s face darken. 

“Agent Rumlow’s facing a disciplinary hearing, demotion, and permanent assignment at the Triskelion.” 

“Why –” 

“The tracker in your bow also functions as a recording device. We recovered it from a group of very stoned backpackers.” 

“So you heard…” Clint trails off. 

“Everything,” Coulson finishes for him. “That kind of harassment is unacceptable at SHIELD. I don’t believe in hazing. You come to me if it happens again.” 

Coulson’s tone has Clint thinking it’s not going to happen again. Period. 

“But I harassed him back,” Clint says mindlessly. 

“You defended yourself, understand? There’s a difference. You’re never going to be punished for defending yourself, Barton.” 

He must not know about Clint fucking with Rumlow’s hotel room. And boots. 

Too late now. 

Humming his assent, Clint leans back in his seat and runs a hand over Logan’s lax body. 

“Get some rest,” Coulson repeats. 

Logan’s sleeping again. Oh no. His question. 

“Can cats have narcolepsy, Sir?” 

“Sleep it off, Barton,” Coulson calls over his shoulder. 

Clint does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is loose ends from Budapest tied up, and Phil and Clint bonding moments because you have to build it up to break it down. 
> 
> And build it back up again. 
> 
> I obviously didn’t write that italicized quote from Barney. It’s from Hawkeye: Blind Spot Vol 1 #4, and I borrowed it, so I’m citing my sources like a sad college student.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The defining moments of Clint Barton and Phil Coulson. 
> 
> Believe it or not, I wanted to add more, but I think I'll work them in later under a different context.
> 
> If you're unfamiliar with Barry Manilow's _Copacabana_ , I would highly recommend you give it a listen, or at least read the lyrics, before you start the chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy.

To Clint’s surprise, they don’t immediately debrief Budapest. Instead, he avoids Fury like…people generally avoid Fury because he has a feeling Logan will either fall in love with him or eat his face. Neither of those scenarios are good for Clint’s career. Or self-esteem. 

When he does finally get dragged into a conference room by Sitwell – he refuses to replace Clint’s pager – he’s met with Nick Fury’s version of a shoulder pat, Hill’s cool approval, and…whatever Coulson’s doing with his face. He still can’t read Coulson to save his life. It didn’t seem like a big deal before, but someday soon, his ability to read his handler could be the difference between him walking out of a mission alive, and not walking out of a mission at all. 

Since his previous assignments were milk runs, Clint’s never actually been to a true debriefing before. There are _a lot_ of questions. (His request to act the whole thing out with sock puppets was denied.) 

“Describe your risk assessment of Natalia Romanova.” 

“Risky.” 

“Have you had past acquaintance with her?” 

“Eh.” 

“Would you say Agent Rumlow is a danger to SHIELD employees and/or even national security?” 

“Hell fucking yes.”

“Barton.”

“Sorry.” 

“Was your bow and quick-release quiver working at optimal levels?”

“Optimally optimum.” 

“During your…travels, was there anything you gleaned about Banionis’s operation and/or the Red Room’s diminishing global foothold?”

Aw, thumb drive, yes.

“Guy’s got real bad taste in lackeys.”

“What was your tactical strategy for infiltrating the Hungarian State Opera House?” 

“Uh, I kicked a chauffeur in the face and stole his clothes.” 

And on, and on, and on. 

Until – 

“Per Agent Coulson’s account, you were familiar with at least one of Banionis’s men. Can you identify him?” 

“S’my brother.” 

The collective air of the conference room seems to be sucked into an angst balloon, only for Fury to pop it with his usual levels of grace and social tact. 

“Psych is going to have a field day with you, Agent.” 

Crossing his arms over his chest, Clint leans back in his chair. “I don’t wanna go to psych. I don’t _need_ to go to psych.”

“Does it look like I give a flying rat’s fucking pig ass what you want?” Fury asks. 

“You mixed like, three sayings there, Sir.”

“ _Does it_ , Agent Barton?” 

He sighs in defeat. “No, Sir. No it does not.” 

That’s how Clint gets saddled with five mandatory appointments with a SHIELD psychologist before he’s allowed to be reinstated for active duty. Skipping the first one is easy enough when he decides to occupy himself with trying to find the Black Widow’s holding cell. She’s in Clint’s old cell – the coincidence of that has him grinning all the way to his favorite vending machine – and he definitely doesn’t choke on his Cheetos as Coulson’s reflection appears in the glass. Not a vampire then. Good for him. 

“This doesn’t look like Dr. Astor’s office,” Coulson comments, never taking his eyes off his tablet. 

“Was on my way there,” Clint says, licking cheese dust off his fingers. 

Coulson frowns the frown of those that now have to deal with Clint Barton on a regular basis. 

“Psych is that way,” he points. “Not that it really matters seeing as you missed your appointment time by three hours.” 

Just three? He was losing his touch. 

“Is it really? Gee.” 

“I’ll be walking you to your next appointment.” 

“Sir, that’s not –”

“Necessary? You’ve proved it is. See you tomorrow, Barton,” Coulson says, pivoting in the direction of the mess. 

“I’m very well adjusted!” Clint calls after him. 

Without turning around, Coulson says, “Well-adjusted people don’t have to say they’re well-adjusted.” 

“That hurts my feelings, Sir.”

“Tell that to your therapist.” 

His Coulson-escort – not the sex kind of escort, just the opposite, really – takes him to his next four appointments wherein all Clint does is stare at Dr. Astor with the kind of apathy he reserves for people whose last names could also be first names, teak bows, and people who unironically wear tracksuits. 

People who walk their cats used to be on that list, but Logan’s taken a liking to it – mostly because he enjoys hissing and pouncing on the falling leaves. 

“Agent Barton, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you’re here for.” 

What no one understands is Clint doesn’t need help with this. In some highly removed abstract sense, he can see the value of therapy. But he doesn’t need a neutral third party to tell him he was put in an impossible situation, that his guilt is only natural, that his brother was “troubled.” An outside perspective isn’t necessary when he knows what Barney backed him into doing was _necessary_ , as perverse as that is. 

It’s not something to get over or something to work on. Barney wasn’t going to stop, so Clint couldn’t either. And he can’t explain it to anyone without sounding like he’s an unstable, emotionless freak. 

He’ll carry it alone. 

He always does. 

Avoiding Coulson by visiting the Black Widow via the vents so he doesn’t have to talk about his failed adventures in therapy becomes an oddly easy part of his routine. 

The first time he drops in goes like this: 

“You’re not the new interrogator,” Romanova says.

Well, the phrase _new interrogator_ isn’t nerve-wracking. “What’d you do to the old interrogator?” Clint asks, not really wanting the answer. 

“He started to cry and hasn’t been back since.” 

They’re going to get along just fine. 

The second time: 

She delicately sips tea while mercilessly beating him at Crazy Eights. 

The fourth time: 

He comes in to find her leafing through _The Complete Book of Baby Names_. 

“Are you…” he doesn’t say “expecting” because he saw the operating rooms in the Belarus Red Room facility and his mind took him a lot of places. 

“I need a new name,” she says. 

He gets that. 

Her scary little toes pinch him for his suggestions of “Cartier,” “Nadia,” and “Jacquelina.”

Hours later, “Natasha” earns him a pinch of approval. 

“I’m gonna bring you better reading material,” he vows. 

The fifth time: 

“Love is for children, Barton,” she scolds, but places _Lord of Scoundrels_ gently back in his lap. 

The seventh time: 

“Do you remember me?” he asks. 

“Enough,” she says with an enigmatic smile. 

Then, “Your suits never fit you.” 

Rude. 

The eighth time: 

Clint brings Logan and snacks with him. 

Natasha likes the sour and tangy stuff – there’s a metaphor in there somewhere. 

Logan likes Natasha. 

She tolerates him. 

The tenth time: 

“What did Banionis do for the Red Room?”

“Recruitment.”

They don’t talk about it again. 

The twelfth time: 

“When does your assignment end,” she demands. 

“This is a forever kind of assignment, Nat. You’re stuck with me,” Clint says happily. 

She looks dubious. 

It’s alright, he grows on people. Probably. 

“Barton, I can’t put you on the takedown operation if psych believes you to be emotionally compromised,” Coulson says, skimming Clint’s evaluation. 

With a pretentious name like Astor, Clint bets _he’s_ emotionally compromised. Because of the stick. Up his ass. 

“You want this op to go well, don’t you, Sir?” he asks. 

Coulson gives him what Clint’s starting to think of as his suspicious face. “Yes, I do.” 

“That’s emotional isn’t it?”

“Do you have a point, Specialist?”

“Everyone’s emotionally compromised. All the time,” Clint says. “Unless, y’know, you don’t have feelings. Ever.”

“I can work with mine. That’s all.” 

Their stare down lasts for going on a minute before Coulson gives his eval the stamp of approval. 

“Get out of my office, Barton.” 

_Yes_ , he’s home free. 

“And for the sake of my blood pressure, please stop spreading the rumor Dr. Astor is an oil baron.” 

Damn. So close. 

Briefing for the Banionis takedown is such a meticulous overview of procedure – rightfully so, there are tens of thousands of lives on the line if they get this wrong – that Clint finds himself paying rapt attention, and not just at the parts where he gets to shoot people. 

“Do you have any tactical recommendations for infiltrating and neutralizing these locations of operation, Agent Barton?” Hill asks. 

He’s stunned into silence that she’s even asking, which explains his dumbfounded head shake and renewed attachment to his napkin drawing. 

Coulson steals the napkin he doodled his strategy on like the dirty, dirty thief he is. 

Clint gets his first commendation in his file for his work on the op – both for sniping and coordinating the clearance of the seemingly countless trafficking victims. Every subbasement he discovers in Banionis’s hideouts have his blood boiling. Men. Women. Children. He can barely keep a lid on it. 

Then he finds out one of Banionis’s higher-ranking men is in the wind. 

“People like that can’t help themselves, Barton. He’ll start something again eventually. And when he does, we’ll be ready for it,” Coulson says, jaw tense and eyes far away. 

It’s a cold comfort, if that. 

His seventh disciplinary strike comes from knocking out the guards outside of SHIELD lockup so he can slam Banionis’s face into the metal interrogation table. Repeatedly. That’s the best gift Clint could think of for his guilty sentencing. 

Initially, Clint’s so afraid to mess up a good thing with Coulson that on their first few point-and-shoot missions together, he doesn’t say an unnecessary word over the comms. A major feat that deserves awards. None of Clint’s previous handlers got that he talked so much because it helps him to focus sometimes by not focusing. Deep breathing exercises make him fall asleep, and before he had handlers, he used to sing to himself. The noise helps him ground his stare – he knows how to be quiet when it matters, but every now and then he needs the tether of chatter. 

“ABBA, Barton, really?” Coulson says one night in Marrakesh. 

Instinct tells him it’s not truly judgmental, though he can’t help the “Yes, really” that spits out. 

“I’m a fan of _Take a Chance On Me_ myself.” 

The small smile on Clint’s face stays there till dawn. 

Another night in Ambato: 

“I’ve heard the stories about you on the comms Hawkeye, talk to me.” 

That’s one more thing no one’s ever said to him before – it’s always, “Can it, Barton,” “Cut the chatter,” or “Are you capable of shutting up?”

“Sir, did ya’ know that cats can have narcolepsy?” Clint asks with the excitement of a man who plans on spending the next forty-five minutes detailing the health concerns of his catnapped Serbian kitten. 

“Help me understand why you lied,” Coulson says, leaning back in his office chair and pinching the bridge of his nose. 

At this point in their partnership, Clint’s pretty much mastered identifying Coulson’s expressions of annoyance and their cousins – anger, frustration, impatience (rare). Everything else isn’t going as well. 

This, this is frustration, contained as it is. 

“If you didn’t want to learn how to fly the ‘jets, you could have just told me.” 

About two weeks ago, Coulson asked him if he wanted to learn another foreign language or learn how to fly a quinjet, among other aircrafts. 

He lied and said another foreign language, so he’s been “learning Arabic” from Agent Abadi. The ruse was going fine up until he had a disagreement with Abadi over her teaching style and swore very colorfully under his breath. In Arabic. And she snitched to Coulson. 

Like a snitcher. 

“No offense, Sir,” but naturally, Clint means for him to be offended, “I dropped out before the third fucking grade. You’re crazy if you think I can learn to fly one of those things.” 

“Do you trust me?” Coulson asks him after he’s painted the range in bullseyes and an arrow portrait of Fury. 

_Do you?_ Clint thinks as he splits a few arrows just to piss off Green down in R&D. 

“Enough,” he says finally, finding that he means it. 

“Come with me.” 

Agent May teaches the class. He’s an idiot. 

When Clint got back from his first-ever mission with SHIELD – meeting a sniveling informant for all of five minutes but waiting for him for five hours – he pouted up a storm at base, wanting to flex the skills he _assumed_ he was hired for. 

Sitwell of all people had a few choice words for him at the time. 

“Listen up, kiddo. Sooner or later, you’re going to get the mission that irrevocably changes you. Everybody does. And for most of them, you don’t want a countdown. Trust me.” 

Clint’s is Budapest. 

Coulson’s is Siberia. 

Siberia isn’t STRIKE Team Delta’s first official mission together, but it is the first one that reminds them they aren’t untouchable. On a technicality, it was still a successful op, it was just the getting there that nearly killed them. 

Clint in particular. 

Apart from Budapest, Siberia is the barest file in SHIELD’s history. Coulson would only debrief with Fury, and anyone who asks either of them about it is coldly ignored. Or fired, if you’re Green and inherently antagonizing. Cint’s more interested in the fact that after Siberia, Coulson never looks at him the same way again. 

He’ll spend the next six years trying to decide whether or not that’s a good thing. 

Ultimately, Clint isn’t upset he doesn’t remember most of it – he’s been assured by Natasha as much – but because Coulson won’t talk about it, and there are things only he would know, Clint has no confirmation that what he _does_ remember really happened. If they didn’t, it was one vivid fever dream. 

It starts with HYDRA’s Siberian facility, Coulson talking Clint through a shot that had partial visibility at best, and Natasha staying dark within the compound long past her check-in time.  
Nat doesn’t know how Clint and Coulson got pinned and dragged into the facility – she swears there’s still an unknown double agent in SHIELD – but the next thing Clint knows, he and Coulson are being warmly acquainted with the gentle touches of Siberia’s Neo-Nazis. 

Ha. 

Torture is an inevitable end in this kind of place, and while he’s sure Coulson’s been trained in counter-interrogation, Clint learned from performing that everyone is expendable. But when he thinks of who’s absolutely vital to SHIELD’s continued excellence, it’s not even a question of who’s also more expendable in this situation. 

So Clint doesn’t give Coulson a chance to think otherwise. 

Provoking interrogators and guards before they’ve started in on you is risky since it’s a blatant tactic to get attention on you and away from someone else. Observant HYDRA goons would’ve taken Coulson based on Clint’s behavior, though he’s an expert in pissing people off so they can’t help but retaliate. 

That’s where things get…delirious. 

For a week and a half, Clint’s life is narrowed down to a cell, a hallway, and another cell. At first, he tries to map the facility they drag him through, marking turns and the room with the weirdly familiar chair, but it’s no use. They cover his head and take him a different way every time; after a while he’s so out of it that it doesn’t matter. 

The steel-tipped whip splitting the skin of his back over and over and over again makes sure of it. 

In between sessions, Coulson lays Clint over his lap on his stomach, holding his suit jacket over the torn skin as close as he can without letting it touch. Freezing blood is one of the worst sensations Clint’s ever felt, he doesn’t need the fabric trying to protect the wounds sticking. 

Once Clint starts to forget where he is, _who_ he is, he latches on to Coulson’s left hand, keeping his thumb on the scar Coulson has on the skin between his thumb and index finger. 

It’s the things Coulson talks about in an effort to keep them both sane that Clint thinks he dreamed, but secretly hopes he didn’t. 

“I majored in foreign and domestic politics in college, but I wanted to study world literature or history.” 

“The Army ruined peanut butter for me. And recreational running.” 

“Mom died when I was sixteen. Dad had trouble looking me in the eye after that. She always said I had her eyes. Needless to say, I left home early.”

“We worked on that car together, but I think he loved Lola more than he ever loved me.”

“Captain America was a way to bond with my father, but I found myself appreciating his unshakeable tenacity more than the superhuman abilities.” 

“My great-grandfather left me half of a near mint set of trading cards. We weren’t close. Admittedly, I think I cried over the cards more than the loss.” 

“I’ve unashamedly gotten into bidding wars with old ladies trying to collect the rest of the cards. No remorse whatsoever.” 

“Sometimes I think I would’ve liked a sibling.” 

“I joined the Rangers because I thought I needed someone to give me a sense of purpose. But once I got to SHIELD, I realized I had one all along.” 

“I met Marcus in the Rangers, and he so kindly started a riot in a Thai prison where I got that scar from a shiv.” 

“When you made me chase you through twenty-six countries – that’s right, Barton I counted – it was the most fun I’ve ever had on the job.” 

“I saw your act with Fury on a recruitment mission. You were truly amazing.” 

One of Clint’s more lucid moments has him slurring out, “Y’should go. Take the ankle floss.” 

“I’m not leaving you anywhere, Barton. Ever, if I can help it. You hear me?”

“Yessir,” he grins, accidentally saluting with Coulson’s hand he still has a hold on. 

“And what do you mean, ankle floss?” 

“Mean the floss. In m’ankle.” 

Coulson starts to root around in Clint’s fortunately thick socks until he retrieves a container of floss.

“Tickles. Quit it,” Clint giggles, weakly batting at him. 

“I told you not to move,” Coulson says sternly. “Where did you get this?” 

“Oh, y’know, just walked on over to the gas station in the Siberian tundra. Kind of question is that, Coulson? I keep it there.” 

“Well, Barton, your dedication to oral hygiene might have just saved our asses.” 

“Plag…plague…palg… _plaque_ is scary, Sir.” 

According to scant security camera footage, Coulson chokes out a guard with floss and a paperclip – a fifth use for his nonexistent list – another he electrocutes with a walkie talkie, then puts Clint over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry while he shoots at guards coming behind them. That’s how Clint still gets his man. 

He vaguely recalls a helicopter ride where Coulson gives him blood because Natasha can’t and Clint whines that she doesn’t want to be young and beautiful with him. Together. Forever. 

“You and immortality are an oxymoron, Barton. Especially since I’m going to kill you,” Natasha says with mock sweetness. 

“You’re an oxymoron,” he mutters. 

And then a delayed, “Aw, death invitation, no.”

Natasha flips her hair over her shoulder, smiling as she turns back to the controls. 

“They were worried about your range of motion, but the skin grafts remediated the worst of the scar tissue,” Natasha tells Clint from his bedside after a week in a medically induced coma.  
They’re in the nearest SHIELD outpost – somewhere in China; if he seems pathetic enough, maybe Natasha will get him some bubble tea to appease his oral fixation – and he’s sickly fascinated with modern medicine: how much muscle mass he lost in a week, and that the places he had skin grafts hurt worse than his back. But not by much. 

“Does he look worse than me?” Clint whispers, horror in his voice at Coulson contorted into a plastic hospital chair. 

“You’ve won that race. Only slightly,” she says. “The infection was…bad. You worried him.” 

_You worried us_ , she doesn’t have to say because she knows he’ll hear it. 

Exasperated, he says, “Why the hell isn’t he in a hospital bed for – for exposure. Hypothermia, dehydration, whatever?” 

“I assure you, Dr. Barton,” Coulson deadpans as he unbends himself from his game of chair yoga, “if I needed to be in a hospital bed, I would be. We don’t all share your severe allergy.” 

“Fine,” Clint huffs and shuts his eyes, feeling Natasha pat his cheek in silent goodbye for now. 

“Specialist,” Coulson says. 

“No.”

“Agent Barton.”

“No.” 

“Barton.” 

“No.”

“Clint.”

His eyes snap open at his first name. Coulson doesn’t call him that. Natasha occasionally, but she prefers finding words in languages Clint doesn’t know and calling him those. He’d like to think they’re terms of endearment. 

Coulson is underweight, pale, and keeping his hands out of Clint’s view; he doesn’t like how any of it makes his chest seize with the want to touch. Comfort. It’s a foreign feeling despite how tactile he would _like_ to be with the people he knows well. 

“What,” Clint says. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. 

Huh. Clint needs to stop expecting the worst from Coulson, he’s proven himself enough, even before Siberia. 

“I’m on the good drugs, Sir. Tell ‘em to stop. S’all floaty,” Clint drawls.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Goodie,” Clint says, watching Coulson’s face. There’s something else that’s different, but Clint can’t quite see it yet. He’ll wait. 

“You think I didn’t know what you were doing, Clint? I’ll remind you I’m the handler in this relationship. You’re the asset. You do _not_ get to make the sacrifice play,” Coulson says in his Agent voice, but it sounds like a plea all the same. 

Oh. 

That’s what’s different. 

Coulson’s worry, his fear, his _care_ are written all over his face, and Clint can read it. 

For the first time. 

Ignoring the heat in his cheeks, Clint thinks Coulson is like a _Where’s Waldo?_ book: you stare at either too hard, and you’re probably not going to find what you’re looking for. But he’s finally found the stripe-wearing bastard. 

“It’s not a sacrifice play if you know you’re gonna win,” Clint argues. “Besides, it’s my job.”

“No, it’s _my_ job to keep you safe, which I know is a new concept for you,” Coulson says gently, “but you’re one of a kind, Clint.” 

He isn’t. It makes his eyes water anyway and he mumbles an unintelligible, “So are you, Sir,” before he shuts his eyes again to get away from all the emotions. 

Maybe Coulson hears him because a bandaged hand wraps around his wrist and two fingers slide softly to rest at his pulse. 

Several weeks following Siberia has Clint doing laughable stretches in physical therapy and regaining the muscle mass he lost. Bothering Coulson is his usual reprieve from the frightening duo that is Natasha Romanov and his physical therapist. 

A green and velvet monstrosity greets him. By burning his corneas. 

“What the hell happened to your fuck-off armchairs?” Clint asks, poking one of the cushions with a stray yardstick. 

Snorting, Coulson says, “They weren’t filling the room well, so I requisitioned this from the Belarus safehouse.” 

“To get me arrested for couch murder, Sir?” Clint snarks, “Or are you moonlighting as an interior decorator?” 

“I was searching through SHIELD’s furniture database – yes, Barton, we have a furniture database – and this couch had the perfect specs for the space.”

Arranging his still-tender body along the couch, Clint plants his face in a crocheted pillow and breathes out loudly, vowing he won’t have a second life crisis on this forsaken piece of furniture. 

“It holds my fondest memories,” Clint says. And, “Did you steal old lady pillows? Already deny them their Captain America memorabilia and now this?”

Coulson snubs Clint’s concerns about his possible thievery and instead says, “Rough appointment?”

“The cruelty of Russian women knows no bounds,” he replies sarcastically. “Think I’m just gonna go take a nap in my quarters.”

All he has to do is get up. Just. Get. Up.

He falls asleep on the Belarus safehouse couch. 

Years later as he’s standing in an empty office, a radio clutched in his arms, it occurs to Clint there was a connection between him being unable to rest his back comfortably on a chair for the longest time and Coulson getting that couch. 

He and Coulson are in Illinois – Nat’s nursing a broken ankle – when he gets the call on the personal cell he’s not supposed to bring on missions. 

“Mr. Francis? This is Ruth with Buena Vista’s long-term care ward.” 

Please, no. 

“Yeah? How’s she doing?”

Across the condo, Clint registers the click of Coulson’s laptop shutting. 

“Not well, I’m afraid. If you want to visit, you need to do it soon.”

“How soon,” he says, tracking Coulson’s footsteps as he edges into his peripheral vision. Close, but not close enough that he’s inclined to snap at him. 

“Today. Tomorrow at the latest.” 

The problem isn’t the mission – he already shot the guy in the bizarre cheese hat – the problem is needling Coulson to let him go without telling him anything. Impossible. 

Distantly, Clint hears himself say, “I understand. Be there soon,” and a grating dial tone. 

“Clint –” Coulson starts. 

“I need to run a night errand,” Clint interrupts. 

Looking baffled, Coulson mouths, “A night errand.” 

“Y’know, an errand you run. At night.” 

“You need to run an errand,” Coulson says. “At night, right now.” 

“That’s what I said.” 

“Clint –” Coulson says again. 

Okay, new plan. Operation Pity is a go. 

Shock and awe, shock and awe. 

“My friend is dying, and I need to say goodbye. Because I promised. It’s not like I said, ‘I promise’ but she knew that’s what I meant, and I really, really can’t break this one because she loves me – it’s not like she _said_ it, but I knew that’s what she _meant_ – and no one’s ever –”

Gasping for air, Clint lets Coulson herd him into a chair, firmly squeezing the back of his neck. 

“I’ll drive you,” Coulson says.

And Clint is so, so grateful for Phil Coulson. 

Lola is a beautiful car. Lady. Car lady. Lady car. Clint gives up. Coulson says you can’t fully appreciate her until she’s in the light, but Clint’s still too afraid to touch her lest he have one of his disaster moments. 

He’s glad they’re driving in the dark because he feels better about crying when the world matches his mood. The day is inevitably going to break, no matter who’s dying. 

They sit in silence for the four-hour travel time – it’s comfortable, Clint’s proud to say he’s never had an awkward silence with Coulson – but Clint’s also sitting in the time before he thinks he has the right to feel any grief.

Mercifully, he knows Petronia would scoff at him for believing he isn’t entitled to his share of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. 

“Pain isn’t supposed to make sense, dear,” she’d say. “You’re just supposed to feel it.” 

“I can stay here,” Coulson offers when they get to the hospital parking lot. 

Clint’s done most of the hard things in his life alone.

“No, come with.” 

Coulson doesn’t say anything in return, he just gets out of the car. 

Pictures didn’t do Petronia Calimeris any favors. That isn’t to say she wasn’t beautiful with her dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, and the brilliant pop of magenta lips that always had the sly look of someone who had recently finished gossiping about you. It was more that the woman was so theatrical, telling fortunes or not, that pictures made her appear graceless. Bumbling. 

She was, _is_ anything but. 

Hospital beds didn’t do her any favors either. 

“She’s in and out,” Ruth says apologetically. “But I’m sure you’ll get a moment.” 

“Thank you,” Coulson says.

Petronia’s hair is still dark, Clint notes as he makes his way toward the closed curtains. 

“Think I can open these?” he asks Coulson, already yanking them open. 

“You haven’t sounded the alarms yet,” Coulson smiles, sitting in one of the visitor chairs at the end of the bed. 

“Hey, I don’t sound alarms.”

Raising a hand, Coulson starts dropping fingers. “Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Athens, Belgrade, _Cyprus_.” 

“Half of those were on purpose.” 

“Whatever you say, Mr. Francis,” Coulson says. His legs are stretched out in front of him so Clint can see the socks he got him with the miniature suit jacket and tie on them – an ironic birthday gift, but Coulson doesn’t miss chances to surprise him. 

“I don’t know why people think you’re so mild-mannered,” Clint says, dropping into the other visitor chair by the head of the bed. “If they could see you now, making fun of my aliases, Phillip Jezebel Coulson.” 

“That’s not even close, Clint,” he sighs. 

“You know mine, and it can’t be worse than Francis. It’s physically impossible.” 

Shutting his eyes, Coulson tips his head back to rest against the chair, and Clint’s suddenly reminded that Coulson’s traded one long sit for another. But what’s a little more guilt today?

“Someday.”

“…”

“Is it Jerold?”

“Clint.” 

Clint doesn’t know what it is about hands showing the rigors of age the most, but he’s holding Petronia’s so lightly, he can only just feel the feeble heat of her skin. The burns on her fingers from when she taught him tricks with a lighter haven’t quite faded, and her tattoo of the Wheel of Fortune looks more like a blob than a symbol of destiny. It stands for change too, a “yes” answer, positive events foretold. Tarot is taunting him. None of that divined this day. 

He wakes up to well-known nails moving through his hair, scratching his scalp in sweeping lines the way he likes it. Indents from laying his head on the side of the bed have made a temporary home on his face, he knows, but he turns it just enough to peer at Coulson without dislodging Petronia’s hand.

Leaning forward in his chair, arms resting on his knees, Coulson is red-cheeked and wearing the pleased smile he gets when Clint and Natasha are bickering on the couch in his apartment, or when Clint’s cooing over Logan, or when Clint demonstrates some obscure skill Coulson didn’t know he had. 

The touch of embarrassment he doesn’t understand until he picks his head up to meet Petronia’s eyes for the first time in over a decade. She doesn’t look at him because she’s too busy giving Coulson her patented lascivious grin and leer combo that’s almost always accompanied by lewd gestures worse than Trick’s, but she squeezes Clint’s hand tightly in acknowledgment. 

Light from the bay windows moves up her body as the sun breaks the horizon, and Clint thinks what Coulson said earlier about not being able to fully appreciate Lola until she was in the light is the same with Petronia. Clint firmly believes everything looks prettier in the dark, but it’s only right that even in death, she’s still his exception. 

Despite their haziness, he’s happy to see Petronia’s eyes are the same shade of brown teetering on black. Barney once called them soulless. Clint broke his nose for it. Twice. 

Her hand reaches to trace the scar over the bridge of his nose before cupping his face in both of her hands, flashing him a smile that puts the air back in his lungs. That smile was there when he found out he’d be getting his own act, when he finally got the pronunciations for Mandarin right, when he hung his head and told her he’d have to leave someday soon. 

“Good morning, Clint.”

_“You ever gonna call me Clint?” he laughs._

_“When you visit.”_

Resting his hand on Petronia’s shoulder, Clint syncs their breaths. 

So he can take her last one with her. 

“That was Petronia,” Coulson says once they’re back in Lola. 

It’s clear who Coulson just met – Clint isn’t friends with _that _many elderly women – and he didn’t phrase it like a question, so Coulson must think Clint needs to get out of his head for a minute by stating the obvious.__

____

“Uh-huh,” Clint breathes, hugging the box of Petronia’s personal effects tighter. 

__

Rainbow afghan. 

__

Tarot cards.

__

Saint Anthony of Padua medallion. 

__

A set of keys to a storage unit – he knows what’s in it, but he’s not ready to have it yet. 

__

“I know it’s not nearly enough,” Coulson says in a quiet rush, “but I’m so sorry, Clint.”

__

He nods tightly, stopping himself for the fourth time from sticking his face in the box in the hopes he might smell fabric softener, eucalyptus, and faint cigar smoke. 

__

“S’not your fault, Phil. Thanks for coming.” 

__

“Of course.”

__

And Clint’s lucky he still has a couple “of course” kind of people in his life. 

__

__

Having succumbed to huffing a box, Clint asks the question he’s been wondering since he heard the name. 

__

“Why Lola? Is it like Barry Manilow ala _Copacabana_ fame?” 

__

Coulson waits until Clint’s finished singing the required verses. “Barton, I was not listening to Barry Manilow at fifteen. How old do you think I am?” 

__

“This jazz music we’re listening to is not helping your argument, Phillip Jabari,” Clint teases. “And…twenty-nine.” 

__

Petronia taught him to lowball people’s ages because it was flattering. Coulson doesn’t look suitably flattered. 

__

“When my mother was getting treatment, my parents had to dip into my college fund to pay her medical bills. I didn’t care. My mother did. She told me to apply to whatever college I wanted, but I couldn’t have been less interested in school.”

__

“Futz, Sir, you don’t have to tell me…” Clint trails off, a wild foot having made an appearance in his mouth. 

__

He briefly breaks his gaze from the endless expanse of road to look at Clint. “I want to.”

__

Clint can’t see Coulson’s eyes through his G-man sunglasses, but the sincerity is palpable. Suck on that, Ray-Ban. 

__

Clearing his throat, Coulson continues. “The University of Chicago was where I wanted to go, but I ended up applying to Loyola because it was cheaper, easier to get into. Little did I know, my mother applied for me – she was a teacher…before, and didn’t want me to settle for less.”

__

_Sounds like a good mom_ , Clint doesn’t say. 

__

“One evening, it’s just her and I at the kitchen table, two envelopes in front of us. And I make this ridiculous promise to the universe, god, some being of karmic retribution that if I get into U of C, I’ll name my damn car after Loyola.” 

__

“Shit Coulson, that’s way better than Barry Manilow.” 

__

“Most things are, Clint.”

__

__

Right about the time the Helicarrier’s near operational, Banionis’s man in the wind resurfaces in Turkey.

__

There are pros and cons to every weapon, Clint’s bow included. One of the negatives, if not the biggest, is that once someone sees he uses it, it’s very hard to forget. Memorability is the last thing you want whether you’re a sniper, government operative, or a gun for hire. He wasn’t as careful as he could’ve been on the days of Banionis’s takedown, and he pays for the recognition.  
His hearing may be the steepest price he’s ever paid. 

__

Betrayed by two of his own sonic arrows forcibly stuffed in his ears – that’s worse. 

__

__

On the day his parents died, Clint’s father managed to land a punch under his left ear. It must’ve hit something just right because he couldn’t hear out of it the next morning. He spent a year cocking his head to the side like a perpetually confused puppy, Barney and all the other kids at the circus making fun of him relentlessly. While Petronia taught him ASL and his ear did eventually heal, the past knowledge of what it’s like being unable to hear – as mild as it really was – doesn’t do anything to assuage the simultaneous rage and depression he feels at waking up in SHIELD medical with thick bandages wrapped around his head and Coulson at his bedside holding a pen and paper. 

__

__

Clint hasn’t spoken in six weeks and he thinks he’s starting to freak people out – i.e. Coulson and Natasha. Fury and Hill will get there soon when they fire him. Coulson’s probably been holding it off, which Clint appreciates because he needs to regain his sense of balance and acrobatic prowess and sharpen up his lipreading skills before he leaves. As much as he owes it to both Nat and Coulson, he can’t stay. Not even for the conversation about his termination. Some SHIELD doctor and specialist duo told him the corrective surgeries he received should return his hearing to 60%, but it won’t be enough to do his job. He knows it. They all know it. So Clint needs to be in the best shape of his life to be out on his own in the world again as a deaf…something.  


Who’s he kidding? No one’s going to hire him. 

__

__

The rooftops of New York City are a great stomping ground to prove to himself he’s shaken off the vertigo and corrected his balance problems. Fire escapes, retaining walls, and alleyways are the nonjudgmental friends he’s convinced he needs right now, and if the accuracy of his flips, somersaults, and jumps are to be taken seriously, he could leave tomorrow night. 

__

Watching his breath dissipate in the frigid air, Clint starts at all the times he ever thought of anything as silent. 

__

__

Logan goes in the makeshift pocket on his tac jacket. Since Budapest, he’s had to change the size a few times. The pain-in-the-ass kitten is now a pain-in-the-ass cat, and Clint hopes most of his newfound bulk is actually just hair. 

__

“Do cats get haircuts?” he asks aloud, only _he can’t fucking hear himself._

__

Running a hand over Logan’s much larger head as opposed to ripping out his own hair seems like a coping mechanism _Dr. Joy_ would appreciate – he doesn’t know whose stupid idea that was, but Clint viciously starts the rumor she steals the vegan options from the fourth-floor break room to also piss _Krirsten_ off. Two for one. 

__

He guesses Logan’s tendency to be docile only when he somehow realizes Clint’s in emotional distress is nice, though his tendency to meow like he’s experiencing cat Nirvana when he sees Natasha is not so nice because that’s what gets him made. 

__

Natasha moves like what he thinks would happen if the Red Sea parted people, her strut powerful and unbending, helpless to do anything but go with her current. 

__

“--hell---think---doing?” she demands.

__

“Takin’ a walk,” he says, cool and collected. “With Lo.’”

__

A grim smile that promises bodily harm curves her lips. “---need----rucksack--do that?” 

__

“Can’t a guy train to go backpacking?” 

__

“You hate backpackers.” 

__

Dammit, Clint does hate backpackers. 

__

Think. Think. Think. 

__

Debating between Logan suffering from cat hot flashes and needing fresh air, and Clint going on a journey of self-discovery through the practice of minimalism, gives Nat ample time to back him into a corner. 

__

The light is better here, and he can see when she says, “Where are you going, Barton?”

__

“Nowhere,” he growls, shouldering past her. 

__

Her hand shoots out to grab his forearm, and Clint hisses at the contact – he cut out his tracker again – grabbing his own wrist so he can yank his arm away before she gets him with a pressure point or nerve strike. She’s surprised he fought back, but he knows in this cramped hallway where she has no room to work and he’s six inches taller, heavier, and stronger, that Clint has the advantage. 

__

He uses it to take a step back. 

__

Into Coulson’s chest. 

__

__

“Fix him,” Natasha says to Coulson after they’ve all piled into his office. 

__

Clint’s on the couch arranging Logan on one of Coulson’s stolen old lady pillows, Natasha’s standing by the door channeling Russian club bouncer, and Coulson’s staring at Clint from across his desk. 

__

Not being able to hear has made him extremely adept at ignoring people, as opposed to the previous “very adept,” and he was sickly pleased with the looks of discomfort he got when they realized _the deaf guy can’t hear them_. It might’ve been the confetti he threw at them too, but he was willing to describe each as acceptably flustering in his mission to amp up his annoying ways.

__

His one exit sans the vents is blocked and Nat knows it, so he lays back on the couch with a serene smile, pulling the other of Coulson’s stolen old lady pillows over his face. 

__

There. She’s not getting the emotional outburst she wanted. 

__

Well, for now. 

__

__

Whatever gut feeling Clint has that helps him shoot, throw, and catch with unerring accuracy is pinging at him from under his pillow as a turtle human in self-imposed exile. Reaching a hand exactly fifty-eight degrees to his right, a small case smacks his hand. Clint throws it back, banking it off of Coulson’s bookcase, radio/cd player antenna, and three-hole punch. 

__

Then Coulson’s hand grasps Clint’s ankle, his weighting dipping the couch cushions. Reluctantly, he moves the pillow off his face. Nat’s sitting in Coulson’s chair with Logan because she’s graduated from Russian club bouncer to Bond villain, and Coulson is giving him Concerned Look #4. 

__

Concerned Look #4 means he has to talk about his problems. This is why Concerned Looks #1-3 are superior. 

__

“Trust me?” Coulson asks, overenunciating and not covering his mouth, and Clint’s embarrassed that he appreciates it. 

__

Contrary to his behavior over the last month and a half, he does. Completely. 

__

“Sit up,” Coulson instructs.

__

Telegraphing his movements, Coulson opens what must be the case he lobbed at him earlier, revealing purple hooks or…robot shrimp. 

__

Slowly, Coulson shifts the robot shrimp toward his ears. He side-eyes him the entire way, but he doesn’t stop him as the wire piece of the robot shrimps are gently guided into his ear canals and the hooks settle around his outer ears. 

__

“Ready?” 

__

Unsure what he’s supposed to be ready for, Clint shrugs as Coulson adjusts something on the shrimp. 

__

Hearing Coulson’s sleeve brush the abrasive texture of his tac jacket – 

__

Fuck, those aren’t robot shrimp. They’re _hearing aids._

__

“Fuck,” Clint says, purposefully loud – he didn’t think he’d hear his own voice again and he’s awestruck – standing to make a beeline for Coulson’s radio. 

__

Scooping it up from the side table, he grins at the sound of his footsteps as he leaves Coulson’s office. 

__

“He’s not going anywhere, Natasha. Not anywhere _far_.” 

__

__

SHIELD’s New York Headquarters have large suites off the hallway of the onsite barracks for visiting high-level agents, dignitaries who need an incredible amount of protection, and/or guest engineers and scientists. They’re rarely used. The fourth room down and to the left is the one Clint likes to hide in. A quick detour to his quarters has him there in minutes, Logan slinking along behind him. He crosses his fingers he scared _Dr. Joy_ as he passed her in the hallway: a man muttering to himself with a rainbow afghan swaddling his body, holding a radio and a stack of exclusively ABBA CDs, followed by his infamously aggressive cat can’t possibly be _reassuring_. 

__

Sometimes Clint’s still surprised Logan likes him best. That’s a new feeling for him – being someone’s favorite. His favorite place used to be the circus because that’s where Petronia was, then it was wherever his bow was, then it was SHIELD. Feeling useful was uncomplicated until he couldn’t be useful anymore. The hearing aids make a world of difference, but he’s still a liability, and he can’t take them with him when he goes. A crutch like that is exploitable. Addictive.

__

He’ll give them back after he finishes this album – music was another thing he never thought he’d hear again. 

__

__

“----giving---back---to—me?” Coulson asks, confused.

__

Cradling Logan in his arms like the kitten he isn’t, Clint looks down at his feet. “I’ve gotta go, Sir.” 

__

Coulson’s hand tips his chin up. “Why.”

__

Now it’s Clint’s turn to be confused. “Because you’re firing me?”

__

_Put those back in_ , Coulson scrawls on the back of a 784-VR form – vacation request. 

__

Clint’s not one to argue with Coulson’s That’s an Order Look #2 – against all odds, he’s not often on the receiving end of it – so he fumbles the aids back in his ears, wincing at the brief screech of static. 

__

“ _I’m_ not doing anything of the sort.” 

__

“Not _you_ , you. SHIELD you,” Clint snips, the uncanny sense he’s said that before sweeping over him. 

__

“Clint, no one’s firing you,” Coulson says, bordering on desperate. 

__

Miserably, he pulls Logan closer to his chest. “But I’m broken.” 

__

“ _Who_ told you that.” 

__

“No one, s’fact. I’m a liability.”

__

Anger, Coulson knows, isn’t something Clint reacts well to, even if it’s for him, not at him, but Coulson can’t seem to help it, his careful composure cracking and no safety net of Agent Coulson on a mission to fall back on. 

__

“Sir –”

__

“With me, Specialist. We’re taking a field trip.” 

__

__

In Coulson’s defense, Clint’s never been on a field trip, but he thought you had to leave the premises for it to qualify. 

__

“Sir, I don’t think this counts as a field trip.”

__

"Fine,” Coulson says, striding over to the range’s simulator controls, “it’s an excursion.” 

__

He’s not sure “excursion” works either, maybe “exercise,” or Coulson teaching Clint a valuable life lesson he’ll write about in Sitwell’s mattress diary through one of the few things he understands: shooting. 

__

“Okay, Barton. Start shooting.”

__

“But,” Clint pouts, “cat.” 

__

It’s not his best excuse, especially since he watched Coulson mess with the simulator’s settings for seven minutes without preparing his brush-offs (or leaving altogether), but he’s wallowing in pathetic inadequacy. 

__

“Logan’s sleeping,” Coulson points out. 

__

“That’s what he wants us to think, Coulson.” 

__

“The narcoleptic cat wants us to think he’s sleeping? Nice try, Barton. Move it,” he says, expertly lifting the sentient mound of fur. 

__

Dragging his feet, the weapons locker looks miles away. Eight weeks ago, he couldn’t get enough of this place, and now it’s a reminder of what he lost and what he could lose. His bow’s been defiled, not that it was ever particularly pure to begin with. Mostly, he liked knowing the thing he used to help people was helping him too. Because he’s selfish. That’s what he gets for thinking he’s more than what people told him. 

__

God, what if he can’t shoot anymore? What’s he going to have left?

__

Here Clint thought he was desensitized to failure, but it’s only on par with the rest of his life that he loses what might be worse than being deprived of his hearing. 

__

_Dr. Joy_ thinks Clint’s self-worth is too tied up in his aim and what he can do for other people. He’d tell her she’s right if he could get past her name. Though he can’t regret that he found what he was born to do at eight year’s old when so many never do. 

__

“Takeout’s on me, Hawkeye, if you can beat your high score,” Coulson calls distractedly from his task of literally herding a cat. 

__

That’s right, he’s a motherfucking hawk. 

__

__

Coulson spent seven minutes at the simulator only to press the button that’s the equivalent of “surprise me.” The temperature, time of day, type of target, wind currents, number of potential hostiles, and geography are set to switch after random lengths of time. 

__

“Were you looking for a metaphor, Sir?” Clint asks over his shoulder. 

__

Crouched down on his knees, Coulson observes with fascination as Logan bites his tie, hoisting the rest of his body up to embed his nails in the silk. Logan swings there like a pendulum. “Believe me, I found one.” 

__

__

Arrow after arrow finds its home in close targets, distance targets, and simulated necks and eyes, no matter if they’re in a windstorm at sunset, on a smoky hill surrounded by structures set ablaze, or underwater in a blanket of mist and rain. 

__

No matter if Clint’s throwing himself off buildings, taking the shot upside-down from a lofty tree branch, or not looking at all. 

__

No matter if he can hear or not. 

__

He doesn’t miss. 

__

__

“Just like these, Clint,” Coulson says, gesturing at the simulator’s settings, “your hearing’s a variable. You know we don’t label variables here; they just _are_. This is another fact of your life now, and you’ll manage until you adapt because that’s what you _do_.” 

__

“Until then, be whatever you have to be, but know that you’re worth more than your shooting arm, to SHIELD and to me.”

__

Clint hides his smile in Logan’s fur, the cat having claimed Coulson’s tie as a hunting trophy. “What about my beautiful baby blues, Phil?”

__

Coulson arches an eyebrow. “They’ve got nothing on Manilow’s.” 

__

“It’s this kind of disrespect that made Lola turn to alcoholism,” Clint yells, heading for Coulson’s office. 

__

__

“Tash, where’ve you been,” Clint asks, mouth full of chow mein. 

__

“You upset me, идиотска птица,” she says. “I had to do something about it.”

__

“Something like wh –”

__

Fury barges into Coulson’s office, his one eye zeroing in on Natasha. “You’ve given me a lot of paperwork, Romanov.” 

__

“More than,” he continues, a hand going in the general direction of his sidearm, “ _him_.” 

__

Considering Fury used to call Logan “it,” “that,” and on one memorable occasion, “the feline incarnation of his grandmother,” the simple “him,” emphatic as it was, is complimentary. 

__

Face impassive, Natasha twirls one of her metal chopsticks.

__

“Nothing, really? No defense?” 

__

“Oh, I did it,” Natasha says, amusedly holding up her wrists. “Take me away.”

__

“What’d she do? What’d you do?” Clint asks, head whipping between her and Fury. 

__

“Cheese,” Fury snarls, “discipline your people.” 

__

“So they’re _my_ people when they need to be disciplined?” Coulson grins, a tad evil. 

__

Rubbing his forehead, Fury sighs. “They’re your people when one of them sneaks down into lockup and kills Banionis and Ivanov.” 

__

The rest of Coulson and Fury’s back and forth is suddenly white noise, and Clint drops his head onto Natasha’s shoulder, hiding his thank you in her blouse. She puts the hand on his knee not holding a chopstick like a dagger and squeezes. 

__

__

"See Phil,” Clint declares, waving his arms at the expanse of dirt and windswept grass that is New Mexico, “it _is_ the Land of Enchantment.” 

__

“So you told me,” Coulson says, smiling, eyes on Clint. 

__

__

_Kyiv, Ukraine: 1980-something_

__

_“Have heart, Clint,” Bohdan says._

__

__

_Mojave Desert, Nevada: 2012_

__

“You have heart.”

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the present next chapter.


	12. Chapter 12

Nat brings up Budapest as a gauge to measure how close Clint is to losing his mind because even when he considers the terrible history between them, killing Barney is still the hardest thing he’s ever done, the hardest thing he’s ever lived with, and the hardest opportune moment he’s ever had to make. 

Now Nat will have to say, “Just like New York all over again!”

She wouldn’t, partly because she does actually have the capacity for compassion, but mostly because Clint’s officially done, and bringing up some mission in some country is no better a reminder than every time he looks in the mirror. 

_Phil Coulson is dead_ , every freckle, scar, and laughter line will say. 

And Clint will spend the rest of his short life knowing it was his fault. 

It’s been a week since Phil died, since Clint played the good solider and killed twenty-five of his coworkers.

It’s been four days since the “team” saw off Loki. 

It’s been two days since Clint started trying to quit SHIELD, and if Hill and Fury had it their way, he was going to quit from quitting. 

There have been five “it wasn’t you’s,” three “don’t do this to yourself’s,” and one “you were the victim.” 

Sticking around in SHIELD lockup long enough to make sure Loki was out of his head was probably the best thing he could’ve done for himself – sans glorified prison being a mind game all on its own – but getting through the required psych appointment before he’s allowed to slap HR with his exit paperwork is an unavoidable torture. He already weaseled his way out of the physical, exit interview, and employee survey, evaluations not so easily manipulated, so he’ll go to psych where the people are paid to feel bad for him. 

Really, what are they going to do if he doesn’t “pass”? Clint may have gone off the deep end, he may have watched the footage of Phil getting stabbed seven times and counting, and he may be persona non grata at one of the few places he’s ever felt at home, but he’s still an assassin and the best marksman in the world – his twenty-five dead coworkers prove it – and he knows how to go to ground better than almost anyone. 

Running away is what he does. A fake sense of absolution in his pocket or not. 

Dr. Felix is petite, blonde, and best of all, so new to SHIELD she’s yet to be completely immersed in all things disturbingly traumatic. She was top of her class at Stanford, and in theory has all the knowledge to be a great therapist, but there’s reading about PTSD and then there’s sitting across from an agent who kills people for a living. The night and day of moral alignments. Of life experience. Fury wasn’t stupid enough to assign Clint to Dr. Felix. It’s that Clint’s smart enough to know he couldn’t resist going toe to toe with Dr. Hunt – a former field agent turned shrink after one too many knee injuries. 

So here he is. 

“Huh…” Clint says, bating. “You drew the shortest stick?”

“I’m sorry?” Dr. Felix frowns. 

“No seriously,” Clint presses, leaning forward so his elbows are on his knees. “You got saddled with the ultimate wack job. What, did all the shrinks get together and weigh degrees, and then whoever had the heaviest credentials got to take a crack at me?” 

Smoothing her hands over Clint’s file, she says, “Agent Barton, your case was assigned to me by Director Fury himself.” 

More like he hacked the psych scheduling department.

“Let’s not pretend that every doctor who had the misfortune of meeting me hasn’t gossiped about it – I’m a fucking nightmare, Doc. So, what scary stories have you heard?” Clint asks, rubbing the button in his pocket. 

Looks like they both have nervous tics today. 

“That’s a HIPAA violation, Agent Barton,” Dr. Felix says firmly, now gripping the edge of his folder. “I think it would be best if we discussed some of your goals…” 

Right now is why he needs to be alone – he’s spiraling fast enough that he wants everyone around him to feel as badly as he does. Dr. Felix didn’t do anything to him. She’s just unfortunate collateral damage, as opposed to the rarely fortunate kind. But she is a psychologist, and if she wants to know how Clint’s _feeling_ , well here it is. 

“Can I ask you a question, Doc?” 

“Oh,” she startles, “yes, of course.” 

“Do you think I’m a victim?”

“Agent –”

“Because _if_ I’m such a victim,” Clint interrupts, shoulders at his ears, “then why is SHIELD making so damn sure I’m not gonna blab any secrets?” 

“As is the sensitive nature of counter-terrorism intelligence –”

“You wanna know what I think? I think some part of them knows this is my fault,” Clint spits in an uncommon fit of subdued rage. “Just like you do.” 

“If we were to assign blame to anyone –”

Quieter, he says, “I remember all of it. Wasn’t that he made me a new person, he just showed me a different playing field. Tactically. S’like I was wearing blinders but doing all that…that was just in me, waiting.”

 _I was capable of that all along_ , he doesn’t say. 

“Worst part was, I still made choices.” 

_Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?_ comes unbidden to his mind. 

When Clint said that to Natasha, he meant “unmade” in every sense of the word. Destroyed, ruined, the foundation of himself declared invalid. Against any force, he always thought he’d have his indomitable will and drive to fight back. 

Over the years, Nat would tell him his soft heart was going to be what got him killed one day. He didn’t think he’d have to carry on living once he was dead. 

“Choices under duress aren’t choices at all.” 

His grip on the button only tightens, thumb tracing the screw that reveals the face of the compass. 

Phil’s fountain pen is in his sleeve where his third favorite knife used to go. He hasn’t been able to look at it since he tried to stab Nat in the throat. Clint knows the danger in being sentimental about possessions, but if this is all he gets to have, no goodbye, no endless pleas for forgiveness, no last wordless exchange of gratitude for one another on and off mission, then he’ll cling to what he has until someone puts him out of his misery. 

“When I first got to SHIELD, a friend told me the difference between empathy and sympathy because I’m not so smart. He said empathy was when people could understand your pain. But sympathy was a prettier word for pity.” 

Dr. Felix shifts uncomfortably in her chair, an aborted movement to uncross her legs. 

“Tell me Doc, you ever had a hand in kickstarting an alien invasion, killing the one man you’d die for and twenty-five of your coworkers?” 

Twenty-five coworkers with brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, wives, husbands. 

Twenty-five coworkers _who were_ brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, wives, husbands. 

One man who, he thinks in his darkest, guiltiest moments, he’d trade all of them for. 

He wouldn’t. Phil would scoff in disgust at one life having precedence over twenty-five, let alone his own. 

“No,” she whispers. 

Standing, Clint hands her his release form. “And I think we both know I don’t want your pity.” 

Rumor has it – Clint started it, but he ran tests – that the SHIELD elevators are controlled by Fury, which explains the near impossible slowness of their currently shared ride. 

Tossing Fury his release form, he misses the look on the Director’s face as he reaches for his tinted shades. 

“I never took you for a coward, Hawkeye.”

Clint knows Fury’s trying to provoke him by using his callsign, but that’s the distinction, isn’t it? Hawkeye isn’t a coward; he can grin with a gun pointed at his head. The _Amazing_ Hawkeye isn’t a coward either; he could nail a bullseye from horseback, on his hands, bow and arrow between his feet, and the arrow on fire if he wanted to be fancy, all while wearing an obscene amount of glitter. But Clint Barton the man, beyond a bow in his hand, is scared of everything that matters. 

Sometimes he thinks it’s better that he knows it too. 

Other times, like this one, he knows it doesn’t change a thing. 

“I’ve never told you any different, Sir.” 

“Agent Barton!” a voice calls. 

Before fighting together, Clint’s opinion on Steve Rogers was complicated, and it remains that way after. Presently, it’s tipping towards mildly irritating considering he had wanted to leave SHIELD headquarters without the shitty parade of his superiors. Phil’s love for all things Captain America and Rogers's immediate willingness to tell him to suit up leaves him respecting the man, the myth, the legend, but there’s something about the good captain that’s confounding. 

Still, he hopes Phil got to meet his childhood hero. 

_“What did you think?” Coulson asks him on the flight back from Cairo._

_Even when Clint found Coulson’s book in Kyiv, he knew his handler held Captain America in high esteem, and he doesn’t want to undermine that. Though he’s made it a point not to lie to Coulson since Coulson doesn’t lie to him._

_“Dunno, Phil. He seems too perfect. Stubborn.”_

_Smiling, Coulson reaches for the knot of his tie. “I think the historians prefer to call it righteous conviction.”_

_“Yeah,_ the historians _prefer to call it righteous conviction,” Clint grins. “You can dress up ‘stubborn’ however you want, Phil. Doesn’t mean you’ll always be stuck on the good things.”_

 _A thoughtful look crinkles the corners of Coulson’s eyes and he hums like he wants Clint to keep talking – that’s never going to get old._

_“We’re lucky is all,” he says, twisting in his seat to watch the aerial views of countries pass them by, “that what he thought was the right thing matched up with everyone else’s.”_  
_“It’s what would happen if they didn’t that I don’t think any of us would’ve lived to see the end of.“_

Or he’s jealous that Steve Rogers always knew the right thing to do while Clint had to stumble over and over again. 

Or he’s jealous that Captain America was the hero Coulson believed in till the very end. 

Or he’s jealous. 

“S’just Clint, Captain,” Clint says, unconsciously pushing back his shoulders. 

The inch taller he is than Steve is the only physical advantage he has on the guy, and he’d be more amused about it if his head didn’t hurt from Nat’s recalibration and the empty, yawning chasm in his chest cavity where he’s just now realizing a lot of things – a certain person – used to be. 

“Steve then,” he smiles, hands clasped in front of him. 

“Sure,” Clint nods, looking down at Steve’s pressed trousers, the button-up shirt tucked into them, and the perfectly polished brown shoes. 

God, he’s the oldest young person Clint’s ever seen. 

“I just wanted to say thank you for fighting with us,” Steve says earnestly, rocking forward on his toes. 

“It’s my job, Capt–Steve. Was my job,” Clint mutters. 

_The job I’ve been doing much longer than you_ , he thinks, bitter.

Eyes widening, Steve takes a step closer and Clint has to fight himself not to take a step back.

“They dismissed you? That’s just not fair. I can speak to Director Fury on your behalf –”

“Steve,” he cuts in, “I quit.” 

“You’re still part of the team, aren’t you? Everyone’s going their own way right now but…” Steve trails off, and Clint gets it. If SHIELD implemented the Avengers Initiative, then there’s a need for them, but who knows when the next alien invasion is going to be or if working well together was a fluke of the impending destruction of human civilization. 

“I don’t do teams, Steve. Nothin’ against you. The one team I had went to shit. My fault really – I killed one of ‘em, and the other hasn’t looked me in the eye in I don’t know how long.” 

Clint knows exactly how long it’s been, and he’s ashamed of the relief he feels at not having to face Natasha like this – brain scrambled, irreparably broken, a ledger flooded with red. 

“Pretty sure she only puts up with me because I sort of – not really – saved her life back in the day. That, or she’s makin’ a real slow play to off me.” 

Pink creeping into his cheeks, Steve rubs a hand down his face before it goes to the back of his head. “I can’t seem to stop putting my foot in my mouth.”

“Think people are happy to give you a pass, Captain,” Clint says, because a nearly seventy-year ice nap after saving humanity is one of the better excuses for modern social blunders. 

“Stark won’t,” Steve scowls, the harsh expression pulling strangely at his face.

“Stark’s the exception to most rules,” Clint smiles ruefully. 

He doesn’t share the aggravation for Tony Stark that most SHIELD agents, government personnel, and military officials naturally come by. Tony Stark, he imagines, is a deliberate asshole partly because of his upbringing, because he can be, and most of all, because he wants to test the people around him. He can’t be completely sure of Stark’s motives, but at a base level Clint does the same thing: he provokes so he knows where the line is with the people around him – how far can he push until he’s left alone again? So he can’t knock Stark for the shared survival skill, though it may have been born out of different needs. 

“It was nice meeting you, Captain,” he says, hesitantly sticking out a hand. 

“A pleasure,” Steve agrees, handshake firm but yielding. 

On his way toward the exit once again, Steve says in a hushed voice, “Oh, and Clint? Agent Romanov told me about Agent Coulson. I’m so sorry. I was really keen to sign his –”

“Thank you,” Clint grimaces, like he has any right to accept condolences. 

Halfway out the door is when Hill takes her turn. 

“SHIELD’s not in the habit of losing good assets, Barton.”

“I’m not in the habit of being treated like a thing, Hill. Not anymore.”

Her infinitesimal flinch is lost on him. 

Besides, he’s got somewhere to be. Well, somewhere to be late to. 

Phil Coulson had a thing about punctuality, so it’s only fitting that Clint would be late to his funeral. 

By three hours. 

_“Barton, wake up,” Coulson intones, standing over Clint’s bed._

_Grumbling something unintelligible, Clint decides to smash his face even harder into his pillow._

_Coulson makes a grab for said pillow and Clint’s head meets his sad mattress._

_“While I can appreciate how thoroughly your ‘time is a construct’ and alarm clocks are a part of ‘the system’ philosophies have wrecked my timetable,” Coulson says, voice dripping sarcasm, “we all have to bend to society’s inconvenient ideologies.”_

_Clint groans, yanking his blanket stash over his head._

_His blanket stash is thus confiscated, and Coulson is so lucky he stopped sleeping naked after he got Logan._

_“For example,” Coulson says, ignoring Clint’s pleas for Logan to sic him, “I’m currently suppressing urges to smother you with this pillow, yet here you are. Alive. And annoying me.”_  


_Opening one bleary eye, Clint glares at Coulson’s knees, wishing knobbiness upon them._

_“There’s coffee from Killer Bean in the hallway,” Coulson sighs, barely dodging Clint’s mad dash for the door._

Walking the whole way there will do that, and he stares down at the gravestone, distantly intrigued that Coulson’s been reduced to a glorified rock and an epithet that reads, “Phillip J. Coulson: Ranger, Agent, Friend.” 

The nature of his job entails that he and everyone around him know abstractly that their lives will be shorter, harder, and bleaker, and even more abstractly, the nature of his job entails that he and everyone around him accept that condition. Accepting his death was something Clint did without qualm, but that was because he also accepted that of the three members of STRIKE Team Delta, he would die first. Phil was supposed to live the longest. 

He’s lost everything before, and in some ways, it’s the most liberating feeling in the world to know you have next to nothing left, but when you’re holding on to excuses for why you want to go, and guilt for why you _should_ , the absence of everything that made you feel alive, everything that made you _you_ , is a cruel mockery of nothing. 

Words won’t fix what he did to Phil, no apologies, no begging, no prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in. 

Because the few times Clint’s allowed himself to pray at all, it wasn’t to any god. 

It was to Phil Coulson. 

A small blue pinwheel pierces the earth next to his grave, and if it weren’t for its lazy circles in the wind, he’d think the Earth was conspiring to suffocate him. 

_STRIKE Team Delta doesn’t do birthdays, not really. No one knows when Natasha’s is – Clint picks a different day each year to get her something – Coulson won’t tell Clint when his is, and Clint’s never celebrated. Since the adoption of this unspoken rule, he’s dug around in the personnel files to find Coulson’s, and this is the year Clint’s going to get him something, whether Coulson likes it or not._

_As Coulson is a man of many enigmatic likes, Clint doesn’t know what to get him until they’re on a mission in Bangladesh where they’re tailing a target through a bustling marketplace, the smells of spices, sweat, and sea salt permeating the air. Colorful tables of produce, stacks of fish, and stalls of street food don’t earn a second glance from Coulson, but the spinning pinwheel stuck on the back of a man’s moped does._

_Later after Clint’s killed a few people and Coulson’s thrown the book at the rest, Clint comes back to the marketplace and scours merchant wares for what he thought was an insignificant toy._

_Clint doesn’t actually wish Coulson a happy birthday, he just sets the bundle of pinwheels down on his desk and stares from his spot on the couch._

_Without fail, Coulson finishes whatever he’s typing before he looks to his desk._

_Regret pierces through him when he hears Coulson’s sharp inhalation, and then it’s gone as quicky as it came when he watches Coulson’s tempered shock turn into something wistfully nostalgic._

_“My mother loved these,” he says, carefully slipping the blue pinwheel from the twine while his other hand keeps a firm grasp on the rest of the small bouquet._

_Unbeknownst to Coulson, Clint loves hearing stories about his mother ever since the first one on the drive back to headquarters from saying goodbye to Petronia._

_“She killed every plant she touched, no matter how well she took care of it,” Coulson laughs wetly. “Her gardens were a nightmare until I started buying her these for Mother’s Day instead.”_

_“I have it on good authority that accidental plant killers are the best kind of people, Phil,” Clint says with the surety of someone who bullshits on a regular basis but somewhat believes their own nonsense._

_“Thank you, Clint.”_

_If it’s for what he said or the gift or the implied happy birthday, Clint doesn’t care, that content feeling he’s been getting glimpses of has been visiting more and more lately._

Morning dew from the cemetery grass has soaked into the knees of his jeans and his forehead hurts where it rests on the edge of the polished stone, unaware how long he’s been positioned like this. 

In supplication, in punishment, in recrimination. 

And he ties a strand of Coulson’s floss in a tight bow around the pinwheel in something else he doesn’t want to think about quite yet. 

That’s a sixth use for floss to add to his nonexistent list. 

Clint Barton’s hands don’t shake. They never have. That doesn’t mean the rest of him won’t. 

Floating above himself, Clint notices he’s started trudging down the streets of New York once more; he’d go on forever like that, walking in some kind of death march if not for the sharp cries stabbing the veil of his daze. 

They’re not sounds of _human_ suffering, but _something_ definitely is, so he runs toward the alley in question, reveling in his newfound focus on anything that isn’t him.  
“– stupid dog, piss in Nikes,” a heavily accented voice says, foot kicking a small golden mound in front of him. 

That’s Russian…and an illegal amount of velour. 

Tracksuit Dracula. 

Oh, no way. 

Palming his second favorite knife from the sheath on his right ankle, Clint whistles. 

Tracksuit Dracula whips his head around, pulling out a gun tucked into the waistband of his track pants. 

“Remember me?” Clint asks, tipping his head to the side. 

“You steal building,” Tracksuit Dracula points with his free hand, taking a step forward in what Clint hopes are the pissed in Nikes. 

“And here I thought for all these years we had _compromised_.” 

Yet to get a good look at the dog’s injuries, Tracksuit Dracula’s movement allows Clint a view of blood-matted fur, a wonky tail and leg, and an eye in serious distress. 

While he’s no stranger to anger, he’s never experienced the “seeing red” phenomenon because it’s a death sentence for snipers and special agents alike to let go of their finely-honed control, but Clint’s field of vision is steadily flooding with a pinkish mist. 

Cocking his gun, Tracksuit Dracula’s pinkie rings glint in the midafternoon sun. “You bring knife to gun fight, bro.”

“No, _bro_ ,” Clint smirks darkly, “you brought a gun to a knife fight.” 

The trajectory of the knife throw has it sailing through the trigger guard, hooking the gun as the blade embeds itself in a splintering crack on the alley’s brick wall. Following the path of his knife, Clint swings an elbow into Tracksuit Dracula’s nose, dropping him to his knees. 

He pushes down urges to slam Tracksuit Dracula’s face into his knee considering his sneaking suspicions he'll need the guy conscious, but for now, he kicks him in the dick, both for the dog and the poetic justice of not shooting him there in Kyiv. 

Shit, speaking of the dog. 

“Is not cool, bro, this violence,” Tracksuit Dracula groans into the pavement. 

Kneeling down next to the dog, Clint swings his foot back, connecting with ribcage. “Neither is kicking your fucking dog. Or velour, polyester’s a thing. Have some standards.”

It’s a puppy, Clint swiftly discovers as he does his best to ignore Tracksuit Dracula’s moans of pain, floppy ears, comically big paws, and sleepy blue eyes. 

Clint shucks his sweatshirt, tying the sleeves around his neck so he has a makeshift hammock hanging down around his lower chest. Reaching out a hand, he’s expecting a bite – he’ll gladly welcome it if it means he could help the dog – but a pink tongue licks the tips of his fingers, and he gradually begins to move to stroke the dog’s head. He’s met with a doggy smile and a whine that breaks what’s left of his heart when he realizes the wagging tail’s hurting him. 

“Aw, baby, no,” Clint says, sliding his arms under the dog’s uninjured side and lifting. 

There’s another brief whine, but soon he’s got the dog arranged in his no-hands sweatshirt cocoon. 

“Hey there,” Clint whispers, tears springing to his eyes. “I’m gonna take care of you now. Not so good at taking care of myself, but I got a cat that doesn’t completely hate me. So if you’re not already sold on how awesome I am –”

A lick to his chin shuts him right up. 

“Is this your building,” Clint asks Tracksuit Dracula. 

“…”

“Is this your building,” Clint asks again, now aiming the gun at Tracksuit Dracula’s dick. 

Tracksuit Dracula slumps over in defeat, skin paling when he sees the switchblade from Clint’s boot isn’t even an inch away from his nose. 

“Da, is my building.” 

“Well then man, you know the drill.” 

At the vet, a deed to an apartment building in Bed-Stuy rolled up in his back pocket – holy hell, he walked all the way to Brooklyn – Clint says to a gaping middle-aged woman at the front desk, “Fix. This. Dog.” 

They can’t admit him without a name so Clint names the dog Lucky. 

Easy as that, he and Lucky are in the same sentence. 

“Who are you?” 

Years of training keep Clint’s feet on the floor and the blanket-lined laundry basket the vet so kindly gave him to tote a drugged-out Lucky around stable in his grip. 

Giving up on getting the keys into apartment 4D’s lock, he glances at the source of the question he stupidly thought he wouldn’t have to answer for at least a week. Or ever.

Female, late twenties to early thirties, two kids, and a disturbingly similar likeness to Clint’s dead mother figure. 

Just what he needed today of all days. 

“M’Clint. The new landlord…I guess.” 

“You guess,” the woman says, eyebrows raising. 

“If I’m being really honest – which I feel like is a landlordy thing to do – I didn’t exactly get this building on the up and up.”

She adjusts the baby on her hip and the toddler clinging to her leg for balance loosens his hold for a few wavering steps. “And how did you get the building, Clint?”

“Uh, I beat up a Russian guy beating up a dog.” 

“This dog,” she gestures. 

“Yep,” Clint says, lowering himself to the floor so the toddler can peer into the laundry basket. 

Not that Clint should be anywhere near children, but Lucky needs some love. 

“That’s Charlie,” she says, “I’m Simone, and this is Georgie.” 

“Soft pets, kiddo,” he says to Charlie’s unintentional heavy-handedness before he gets to his feet and shakes Simone’s hand. “S’nice to meet you.” 

Simone smiles knowingly. “Oh, I think it will be.” 

The problem with mind fuckery, Clint’s finding out, is that he’s mostly used to it as a byproduct of physical pain. That’s how it was when he lost his hearing, when he was torn to shreds in Siberia, and partly in the case of his brother. Before Loki, the Helicarrier, and the Battle of New York there was only one kill that was capable of keeping him up at night. 

Now, his Bed-Stuy apartment is too small for twenty-six ghosts, a cat, a dog, and a traitorous coward. 

_One month since Coulson died:_

Clint discovers a roller skate and a rollerblade in his hallway closet, and sure, they have different names, but they can’t be _that_ different. 

His kneecaps will later attest that they are, in fact, _that_ different. 

He introduces Logan and Lucky without any bloodshed. Inexplicably, Logan is currently bigger than Lucky, so he’s taken to curling around his infinitely friendlier sibling in Lucky’s dog bed. 

Apartment 4D gets furnished. Granted, it’s animal furniture sans his bed and a purple beanbag, and even those are desecrated by pet hair. 

Times awakened by his own screaming: 16. 

_Two months since Coulson died:_

The Belarus couch mysteriously appears in the apartment – all signs point to Natasha because a kettle and her Russian twig water have migrated to his kitchen. 

A week and a half of the second month he tries not sleeping. He gets hallucinations for his troubles. 

Times awakened by his own screaming: 23. 

Someone is doing an impression of an earthquake on Clint’s front door. 

Irritably, after traversing mountains of old takeout boxes, dog toys, and a Logan-shaped lump that’s probably just cat hair, he yanks open the door. 

“Um, hi?” a voice squeaks. 

Rubbing his eyes, Clint’s met with a dark-haired girl in her late teens staring intently at his abs. 

And oops, he’s only wearing boxers. Dog Cops boxers. Unsurprisingly, it’s not the worst way he’s ever answered a door. 

“Can I help you?” Clint asks wearily. 

Her perusal of his form remains intense, but it’s not in attraction. He’d almost say it’s in awe if that weren’t the most farfetched conclusion he could possibly draw from this situation. 

“I’m Kate,” she grins, “I live in 3A?”

She doesn’t sound too sure about that. 

“Alright Kate in 3A. Is your showerhead broken or something?”

Taken aback, she rubs a bruise on her forearm. “Oh, no. Nothing’s broken, it’s just that I’m a big fan.”

“Of what?” he makes a face. 

Kate furrows her brow back. “Of you?”

 _Bruise on her forearm_ – her armguard isn’t doing its job, or her form is shit, or both. Clint isn’t the poster child for great form either, but he’s got that whole never missing thing going for him, so it’s never mattered. 

“I was sort of wondering if I could get an archery lesson?” Kate asks, wringing her hands together. “I could pay you, of course, and I normally wouldn’t bother you but you’re the best. You should learn from the best, right? And you were such a hero in the footage of the invasion–”

“Listen, kid,” Clint interjects, _hero_ pinging around in his skull, “I’m not whoever you think I am and whatever you think I do anymore, okay? You want a superhero? Talk to Captain America or Iron Man. You want someone dead? Then you can talk to me.”

Times awakened by his own screaming: ~~23~~ 24\. 

_Three months since Coulson died:_

Natasha appears next to him on the Belarus couch sometime in July, the smell of steaming cloves accompanying her. “I see another animal has adopted you.”

Snorting, Clint runs a hand down Lucky’s back where he’s snuggled himself between Clint’s thigh and the arm of the couch.

“He wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself,” she says a beat later, eyes on the sandwich cookies episode of How It’s Made, sipping tea out of a delicate cup that wasn’t in his cupboards.

“Phil’s dead, Nat,” Clint says, tone flat. “He doesn’t _want_ anything.”

“I – this team could use you,” she insists, saying what she really means now, commenting on Clint’s typical choice of self-punishment: isolation, “even if you have an uncanny talent for digging yourself into a hole and then refusing to climb back out.”

It’s his hole to dig, especially when he’s the vestigial organ on a team with a super soldier, a genius billionaire, a Hulk/disgraced nuclear physicist, and an ageless assassin.

“No,” he replies to all of it, taking in Natasha’s slightly ruffled appearance, though it’s a series of small things, as it always is with her – the arrow charm on her necklace is situated at the back of the chain, old manicure, chapstick instead of lipstick.

“You’re done then,” Nat says, no question in her voice.

This life doesn’t let them go until it kills them and Clint’s not the retiring type, but for now, he is. Done. And when he’s ready not to be, he doesn’t know what he’ll come back to. Maybe not the Avengers. Twenty-six people have reminded him of what he’s good at.

Huffing out a breath, Nat shoves her feet in his lap. “Fine, Barton, but know this: people’s actions are their own. Whether you choose to put the world on your shoulders or not. I know you think you need a plan to get over this…loss. You don’t. You live with it the way you live with everything else – you just do.”

She’s right, of the moments that have thus far defined Clint’s life, he didn’t do anything special to live with them, he just _did_.

Circling his hand around her ankle, he smiles down at Nat’s finger toes – one of his favorite innocuous things about her – and thinks about how she said, “loss,” a sad, guarded thing in her mouth.

“You lost him too,” he says, voice hushed because he has to try for her.

Pursing her lips, Natasha nods once in acknowledgment.

“Not like you did.”

Times awakened by his own screaming: 11.

On the eighth day of the fourth month since Coulson died, Clint decides he wants his radio back. Coulson’s radio.

Whatever.

Breaking into SHIELD Headquarters reminds Clint so much of the attack he organized on the Helicarrier that he’s already most of the way to hyperventilating by the time he makes it to the door of his hideout spot, and the place he stashes Coulson’s radio.

For the sake of his ears, he needed to take his aids out yesterday, but trying to fall asleep in silence isn’t what his nonexistent doctor ordered.

Paranoia is his doctor.

That paranoia is paying off because he hears a noise from behind the door. Nothing specific – SHIELD has good soundproofing and insulation – just enough that he’s on alert.

The living space of the guest suite is empty, but the actual bedrooms are strategically positioned at the end of a long hallway.

As he advances, footsteps inaudible even in heavy tac boots, sounds start to sharpen past the bedroom door.

Trumpet, bass, saxophone – jazz.

_“This jazz music we’re listening to is not helping your argument, Phillip Jabari.”_

In the span of seven seconds, Clint’s done with subtlety.

So he acquaints the business end of his boot with the business side of the door.

There in a hospital bed sits Phil Coulson typing away on a laptop.

Looking distinctly alive.

With Nick Fury in the armchair next to him.

Clint would be a lot more disappointed in his gullibility if he weren’t rearranging the list that holds the biggest betrayals of his life.

Phil Coulson is the unanimous number one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say this isn't the typical Clint finds out Coulson's alive fic, though I don't know if that's how it'll come across. There's a slight twist to the circumstances of Coulson's death, so hopefully, that's exciting. 
> 
> And then more fun characters while Clint's pissed. 
> 
> Also, I'm back in school so updates won't be as frequent. Not that they were very frequent to begin with :) 
> 
> But luckily my closure issues make it impossible for me not to finish something, so rest assured!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homework? I don't know her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience or lack thereof. I know what it's like to wait for fic, so if that's you, I appreciate you!
> 
> And I'll be replying to comments really soon.

Clint hasn’t been this mindless and single-mindedly focused at the same time since Phil got shot by a Yakuza in Japan. 

_“It’s fine, Clint, it hit the vest,” Coulson says to Clint’s frantic hands trailing all over Coulson’s chest. “Hey, look at me._ It hit the vest.” 

_A hand grasps Clint’s chin firmly, and his frantic eyes meet Coulson’s steady ones._

_Huh, Clint just ripped Coulson’s expensive button-up – said buttons cost more than his boots – and Marta in the SHIELD costume department is not going to be happy with him. That’s what Coulson gets for being a Clint-level idiot._

_“What the hell were you thinking?” Clint demands. “You can’t just walk through a firefight like that.”_

_Admittedly, it wasn’t that much of a firefight with Clint around, it never is. Not for long anyway. But in the search for his actual target, he had got caught up in a shootout of seven Yakuza snipers likely concealing the exit of his intended mark. The crossfire was still heavy, and Coulson had picked his way through it and over to Clint’s rooftop for reasons unknown._

_“The comms were down,” Coulson says, occupied with picking the slug out of his vest with a bowie knife. “Our person of interest has been evacuated, and you and I need to adjust mission parameters to meet mission goals.”_

_Wanting to scream, Clint says, “No, you needed to park your ass and let me handle this. I could’ve come to you.”_

_“I’m not some newborn lamb, Barton,” Coulson scowls, pocketing the freed slug._

_“Didn’t say that,” Clint huffs, crossing his arms._

_“Come on, Specialist,” Coulson says, heading for the emergency exit. “We’re sitting ducks on this roof.”_

_“Lambs, ducks,” Clint murmurs, “it’s like you want to get shot. Little Bo Peep style.”_

_He swears he hears Coulson say, “Now you know how it feels,” but he can’t be sure._

For the most part, Clint’s panic response and ability to be overrun by his emotions has been beaten out of him. Literally and figuratively. So he thanks whatever switches live inside his brain and body that submerse his being in mission mode with a swift flick. Betrayal, the sting of humiliation, how he should have expected this all along, how he got too comfortable no longer matter. Phil Coulson _doesn’t_ matter. He came in here for one reason and one reason only: 

The radio. 

Where is it – bedside table. 

How far – fifteen feet. 

Hostiles – Potential, but negative. 

Move. 

He does. 

At the bedroom door again, radio cradled in his arms, Clint ignores Fury but allows himself one last look at Phil Coulson.

Peaky, though in visibly good health for a dead man. 

Once upon a time, Clint thought, if he could, he would’ve taken Loki’s scepter to the heart for that man. Gladly. In a way, he already had. Now, Clint has no idea who he’s looking at. 

It’s more than possible he never did. 

Stalking down the hallway to the sound of two sets of footsteps behind him, Clint shifts the radio to one arm. He’s going to need a free hand for his very bad idea. 

“Agent Barton, get your ass back here. That’s an order,” Fury seethes. 

“Last time I checked,” Clint says without stopping, “I don’t work for you.” 

Roughly, Fury’s hand grabs his shoulder and Clint spins around – graceful enough to do Natasha proud – driving his knee into Fury’s gut. The whoosh of air forced out of Fury’s lungs may be the most satisfying thing he’s ever heard until he decides to go for the punch to the jaw. What the hell, go big or never go home with a black bag over your head. 

“You have to hit like you don’t wanna get hit, boy,” Trick always told him. 

That’s why Clint’s never pulled a punch in his damn life. That’s also why Fury’s laid out on the ground; though he’s still holding onto consciousness – he’s the Director of SHIELD after all. 

“You really think that paperwork went through?” Fury gets out, hand on his jaw. “The buck stops with me, Barton. You’ll be back here in no time.” 

“Yeah? What are _you_ gonna do? Because we’ve all seen what _I_ can,” Clint glares, squatting just out of Fury’s reach. 

“That a threat?” 

“No,” Clint says, disregarding Coulson’s quiet, unassuming silhouette. “That’s a fact.” 

Not waiting for a reply, he stands and makes his way to the elevator, muttering, “Should’a let that blast hit you back at Pegasus.”

“Do you want me to beg, Clint?” Coulson whispers, but he might as well have shouted. 

_What I want,_ Clint thinks. _Since when does anyone care about what_ I _want?_

“I want you to be who I thought you were. But that’s my fault isn’t it.” 

_For thinking you’d be honest with me in the first place._

Like SHIELD’s elevators, Fury’s office is the subject of rampant agency gossip. Clint’s one of the few people who knows the truth: it’s just an office. Of course, it has all the wildest desires of the security-paranoid – bio scanner, voice recognition, infrared, airborne poison detector, bullet-proof desk – but there are no poisonous snakes, no eyepatch of the month calendar, and no medieval torture devices. An even lesser-known fact is this: Nick Fury hates computers. So much so, that his technological prowess was worse than Clint’s before Natasha got her spindly spider hooks into him. 

But Clint learned under master tutelage. Fury didn’t. And his office door is conspicuously open. 

This time, Clint’s really got nothing to lose.

“ _Mr._ Barton,” _Krirsten’s_ nasally voice calls as he strides past her and Hill, “you don’t have an appointment.”

Hill whispers something and _Krirsten_ relents with a reluctant pout. 

Had he not been having one of the more earth-shattering days of his life, Clint would’ve kept walking. As it stands, he _is_ having one of the more earth-shattering days of his life, so he throws Coulson’s fountain pen dagger behind him to land a millimeter away from _Krirsten’s_ index finger resting on the sign-in sheet. 

Her squeal is nearly as fulfilling as the feel of Clint’s knuckles on Fury’s face. 

Despite Maria Hill’s propensity for oscillating between hard-ass former Marine and hard-ass Deputy Director of SHIELD, Clint thinks that under gunpoint or threat of a second alien invasion, she would probably admit she likes him. Probably. It’s with this shaky confidence in mind he chooses not to push his luck and texts Natasha instead. 

_wutz tha paswrd 2 furys cmptr???_

And the more pressing news: 

_phils alive btw_

_Super Trouper_ – Nat’s ringtone – starts playing as Clint suspiciously pokes at the mouse of Fury’s Dell Desktop. 

“How do you exist?” Clint says incredulously to the ancient computer, hoping whatever remnants of 2005 that are still on the monitor aren’t contagious. 

By now, Nat knows to call him twice if she wants him to pick up the phone – it doesn’t matter the ringtone, he has to sing along the first time – so he dutifully waits until ABBA’s finished singing about how the Super Trouper beams are going to blind them before he picks up the phone on the second ring. 

“Did you hit your head again?” Natasha asks in the tone she so sweetly uses on international arms dealers. 

“That a response to the first or second text?” he says, rooting around Fury’s office for his top-shelf whiskey that would be a lot easier to find had it actually been on a top shelf. 

“Both.”

“Let’s see, Nat. Fury’s a fucking traitor, and Phil’s a fucking traitor either by proxy or in his own special way. So. I need you and your creepy black magic to tell me the special fucking séance I have to perform to commune with this early 2000s monstrosity.” 

Clint struggles with the reality that Nick Fury has never shown Clint anything other than exactly who he is, even at his most deceptive, most manipulative. He’s seen the leader who will do anything to extract an agent from a mission gone to hell. Then he’s seen the man, the very desperate man, lie without remorse to reach his ends. It’s hard to reconcile on a good day. This, this isn’t a good day. 

Phil Coulson is a whole other story filled with childish things like hope, trust, and friendship. 

“That was a lot of fucks, Barton,” Nat says. 

“Nah, it was a lot of ‘fucking’ and not the fun kind,” Clint grunts, head in the third drawer of Fury’s filing cabinet. It’s not stuck. Well, it won’t be after he pries off the false bottom. 

“Clint,” she says – uh-oh, first name, he’s in trouble – “how are you doing with all of this?”

“Everything’s in shambles and the shambles are on fire. How are you?”

“I’m compartmentalizing as any respectable government agent would until the right moment,” she replies primly. “Not sticking my head in filing cabinets from the forties.” 

_I bet if Steve Rogers was the filing cabinet from the forties,_ Clint thinks absently. 

“You know me and respectable, Nat. Best of friends,” he smiles, self-deprecating. 

Blowing out a breath, Nat says, “I know you know that’s not what I –” 

“I know that’s not what you meant,” Clint says through a sneeze, wiping dust from the whiskey bottle onto his sleeve. Too bad it’s going to be wasted on the Bud Light of technology. “I just – I need answers.” 

“Username.”

“Tasha,” Clint says slowly, “I need the password.”

There’s a drawn-out silence where Nat seems to be taking the time to judge Clint on his judgment. 

“Barton, you loon,” she says. “Username _is_ the password.” 

Oh. 

_Oh._

Usually, hate and disgust aren’t emotions he often feels, or at least for prolonged periods of time. Now, it’s like he’s bathing in some fucked up bath bomb called, “Shame Spiral: Swirl Edition.” 

“…you hear me?” 

“Yep,” he says distractedly, typing one-handed. “Just wishing I hadn’t.”

“Sometimes it’s better – not knowing things.” 

For Natasha, it is. Or she’s convinced herself that it’s better. Not knowing how many lives she’s really taken. Not knowing what happened to the man who spared her from a snapped neck and taught her how to truly make her body deadly. Not knowing who she was before the Black Widow. 

Scrolling through the personnel list, he says, “You think this is one of ‘em.” 

“I think you’ve built part of your life on some accepted truths about Phil Coulson,” Nat says, not unkindly, “and I think they’re going to crumble in the very immediate future.” 

_I think you might crumble,_ Nat doesn’t say. _And what if this is the time I can’t put you back together?_

The mouse hovers over Coulson’s file.

“Wouldn’t be the first life I’ve razed to the ground.”

It won’t be the last.

He clicks. 

Nothing in the file has a digital copy, so Clint’s on his way to records after finding five subfiles under Coulson’s SHIELD personnel information and prying Coulson’s dagger out of a not-so-mysteriously absent _Krirsten’s_ desk – he carves “watch your fingers” and a smiley face into the wood. 

Once he’s dropped into the stacks from the vents – radio handle held in his teeth – he thinks about seeing if he can get the security footage of Fury watching him pour an entire bottle of 50-year-old single malt scotch whiskey onto his computer. Besides punching Fury in the face again – or keying Lola – it’s the only thing that has a _chance_ of making him feel marginally less terrible. 

Who’s he kidding? He’d never key Lola. And here he is, not an hour after the most gut-punching betrayal of his life, considering Coulson’s feelings. 

How much more of a fuck-up can he be. 

The day’s still young, he figures. 

Fitting five files under his shirt takes a negotiation of space Clint never anticipated giving anything that wasn’t his shoulders in ventilation systems. He could’ve put them in his pants, but he’s been a little (a lot) lazy about laundry lately (always) so he’s been going commando for a while (a week). 

And no one should have to touch his dick that doesn’t want to. 

“Nice chest, Agent Barton,” Agent Woo deadpans when Clint comes around a corner of filing cabinets. “Very…angular.” 

“Wow, angular?” Clint says dryly. “HR’s gonna tear you a new one.” 

“Those pecs are legendary, Barton. They’ll understand.” 

Looking down at his chest, he grimaces at his subpar hiding place. “You’re really not stopping me? For all you know, I’m smuggling out state secrets.” 

“ _Are_ you smuggling out state secrets?” Agent Woo asks, hip leaning against a bank of computers. 

“I, uh, haven’t looked yet,” he says sheepishly. 

Woo laughs and Clint nearly takes a step back at such an amused sound being because of him. Truth be told, he’s been waiting for the malice to appear on Woo’s face since they started this conversation, and he’s feeling disturbingly off-kilter without the typical glare and sneer. 

“I’d imagine this is why Romanov does the infiltration work.”

“Seriously, man. Why are you talking to me?” he blurts out. 

If Woo’s offended by his characteristic tactlessness, he doesn’t show it. The smile does get softer, and more sympathetic than he wants. Or deserves. 

“Clint, you practically grew up here. Anyone that knows you, _really_ knows you, knows you wouldn’t turn on your coworkers, your _friends,_ willingly.” 

Most of the time, Clint doesn’t think he knows himself all that well, let alone how well others know him. There are only two people that could qualify to understand what goes on in his messed-up head, and one of them is supposed to be dead. Because of _him_ no less – 

“Well, me and my hot bod are just gonna…” he says, thumb pointing over his shoulder toward the exit. 

Nodding, Woo moves to pass him. “Chin up, Barton,” he says, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“For the pecs,” Clint agrees, thrusting a half-assed fist in the air. 

Five minutes is all the time Clint allows himself to stand in Coulson’s barren office, staring at where a hideous Belarusian couch used to be. 

“Were these the best days of my whole life an’ I just didn’t know it?” he asks no one at all. 

Maybe the better question is would he have wanted to know if they were. 

Then and now. 

The SHIELD garage has a fleet of agency cars for home soil missions, takedowns, and weapons transport. Clint didn’t park there – he took the subway to headquarters. Nor does he keep a car there. What he’s going to do is steal a car because he’s living out of spite, and he knows it’ll piss _someone_ off – hopefully Fury, though he’s flexible – but he needs to strip the trackers off first. 

Engine. 

Steering wheel. 

Back bumper. 

Front bumper. 

Bottom right screw on each license plate. 

Passenger seat sun visor. 

Left windshield wiper. 

That leaves Clint behind the wheel, holding five files in his hands. Engaging the locks, he goes ahead and pulls out his aids. He could be behind a moat, an entire army, _Natasha Romanov_ and still feel vulnerable without his ears in – he doesn’t think that feeling’s ever going to go away. Along with most of the others he’s experienced today and the last four months. 

File #1

ITEO – 1

Full Name: Phillip J. Coulson

DOB: [redacted]

ID: SKA 949115

Clearance Level: Eight

Instructions for Enacting ITEO: 

In the event of [redacted – refer to Senior Agent Coulson’s independent notes] protocol for the CXD 23215/SHIELD 616 Mobile Program will be instated. 

Potential Personnel: A. Triplett, G. Ward, M. May, J. Simmons, L. Fitz – subject to change. 

File #2

ITEO – 2 

Full Name: Phillip J. Coulson

DOB: [redacted]

ID: SKA 949115

Clearance Level: Eight

Instructions for Enacting ITEO: 

In the event of [redacted – refer to Senior Agent Coulson’s independent notes] Senior Agent Coulson will be reassigned to SHIELD’s foreign/interagency relations facility (UK division). 

File #3

ITEO – 3

Full Name: Phillip J. Coulson

DOB: [redacted]

ID: SKA 949115

Clearance Level: Eight

Instructions for Enacting ITEO: 

In the event of [redacted – refer to Senior Agent Coulson’s independent notes] Senior Agent Coulson will be reassigned as Head of Analytics for SHIELD’s various European headquarters. 

File #4

ITEO – 4

Full Name: Phillip J. Coulson

DOB: [redacted]

ID: SKA 949115

Clearance Level: Eight

Instructions for Enacting ITEO: 

In the event of [redacted – refer to Senior Agent Coulson’s independent notes] Senior Agent Coulson will be instated as deputy director of SHIELD Headquarters – Iceland. 

File #5

ITEO – 5

Full Name: Phillip J. Coulson

DOB: [redacted]

ID: SKA 949115

Clearance Level: Eight

Instructions for Enacting ITEO: 

In the event of [redacted – refer to Senior Agent Coulson’s independent notes] Senior Agent Coulson will oversee the research/trainee program in Tokyo. 

Coulson has contingency plans for…something. Multiple somethings. One of those plans involves Grant Ward – who can’t _touch_ Clint on his _worst_ day – and Melinda May. Who the hell has he been working with all these years? He didn’t even know Coulson was interested in half of these positions. All he could do now is find Coulson’s personal notes. 

But does he care that much? 

Yes. 

Even though Coulson threw him away worse than his own brother?

Yes. 

Knowing there’s nothing he could possibly read or that Coulson could possibly say to make anything remotely okay?

Yes. 

Packing the files away without destroying their contents is an exercise in restraint that Clint thinks he’d be incapable of performing had Gino’s on 22nd not stopped offering bottomless breadsticks for breaking the restaurant’s skeeball record. 

Though stopping himself from eating unlimited carbs in the face of easy arcade games is nowhere near as hard as not full out decking the man who just climbed into the passenger seat of his car. 

Automatically, Clint reaches for his aids in the left pocket of his jacket, but he realizes two things in quick succession: he doesn’t want to hear anything Phil Coulson has to say, and he doesn’t have to hear himself to say what he wants to. 

“Get out of the car,” he says, looking straight out the windshield. 

“Get out of the car.”

“Get out of the car.” 

“Get out of the car.” 

From the corner of his eye, Clint catches Coulson twist his body closer to Clint’s. 

“Get. Out. Of. The. Car.” 

He touches his forehead to the steering wheel in some mockery of prayer, whispering, “Get out of the car.” 

A warm hand touches his elbow and Clint’s the one fleeing. 

Somehow, Coulson’s still talking to him a good eight feet away from where Clint’s leaning against the hood, Clint watching him in the way he watches people without them ever taking notice. Coulson must think he’s wearing his field aids – they’re practically invisible unless someone’s getting up close and personal with his ear canal – since his mouth is moving rapidly. Frantically, even. Faster than Coulson would speak if he thought Clint was lipreading. 

_Road trip. Knead u 2 wtch tha kidz_

_Why do you text like this, Barton?_

_It’s hip…so wll u wtch thm?_

_Yes, I’ll watch your spawn. Is he going_

Chancing a direct glance over at Coulson, Clint finds him with his Agent Coulson mask well arranged, but slightly crooked in places he can’t quite make out. 

_Undecided._

_Don’t stab him…_

_…in an enclosed space. Blood is difficult enough to get out of upholstery without you cleaning it._

_Thx Nat u alwys no wat 2 say_

_Someone has to._

_Nothing like a Black Widow goodbye,_ Clint thinks as he slips his aids back in his ears.

“Clint,” Coulson starts. 

“Nope,” Clint says, dropping into the driver’s seat once more. 

“Please,” Coulson breathes out. “Let me expla –”

“And I said no,” Clint replies, fiddling with the radio to drown out the grating sound of his teeth grinding.

“I know there aren’t words –”

Deathgrass – death metal meets bluegrass. Perfect. 

“You’re right, there aren’t words. So stop using them if you want to stay in this damn car,” Clint snaps, putting said car in reverse.

They’d made this drive together before. It may have started in a different state, under the duress of a different devastating moment, but it was to the same place. At the time, Clint had been so proud that he and Coulson could exist together in quiet without awkwardness. 

Now he’s telling Coulson not to talk to him, and he’d really like to add “don’t look at me” to the road trip rules. 

Unsurprisingly, Coulson doesn’t say anything. 

Clint suspects that if he turned his aids all the way up, he’d just be able to hear the straining of whatever’s kept them tethered together for this long. 

Time will tell if it will bend. 

Or break. 

Six times Clint stops for gas and six times Coulson looks at Clint like he’ll leave him on the side of the road like a faltering refrigerator if he gets out to piss or stretch his legs. It’s not that Clint wouldn’t do it – he’d sure as shit be justified – but Coulson’s pallor is a perturbing pale that reminds him so much of Siberia, he stops at a motel in Indiana he really doesn’t want to stop at. 

As is the way of Clint Barton’s life, there’s only one vacant room. 

“There are two beds,” Coulson points out unhelpfully. 

He huffs. “Car rules still apply.” 

Watching the footage of Coulson getting stabbed seven times doesn’t prepare Clint for seeing the aftermath in person. The scar. The puckered pinkish-red skin. The unnaturally thinner frame on which it lives.

Its twin on the back of Coulson’s shoulder blade.

In Tarot, The Lovers is the card of the Gemini, the twins. It’s accurate in a maudlin sort of way – he’s got decisions to make, decisions with lasting ramifications about an existing relationship. Crossroads seem like an exercise of free will, but all he thinks he’s choosing between are his mangled pride and self-respect, and the feeling he gets when he looks at Coulson that he can only liken to what he imagines having that scar on his own chest would be like. 

Arguably, death leaves the worst marks on the people it leaves behind. Death isn’t supposed to leave marks on the living. Or it shouldn’t. That is, if Coulson actually _died._ It’s not like Clint will be asking Coulson if his heart stopped. God, what if Coulson can’t work in the field anymore – that’s another thing that’s Clint’s fault. He should check his medical records – 

He should – 

He should – 

He should – 

Shirt hanging open, Coulson pops into his field of vision. “Specialist, _breathe_.” 

_Would if I could boss,_ he wants to say, but the next thing he knows is that he’s locked himself in a dingy Indiana motel bathroom, hunched over an even dingier toilet, spitting up mouthful after mouthful of bile. 

Waking up on random floors isn’t an uncommon experience for Clint. But waking up on random floors with an equally random hand slid under the door does happen to be an uncommon experience for him. Until he realizes that’s Coulson’s hand, he’s in Indiana, and this may be the smallest he’s ever felt. Because he’s weak – he’s so, so weak – he slides his body the rest of the way over to the door, and curls the tips of his fingers around Coulson’s, laying his cheek down on cool linoleum. 

They say it only takes a teaspoon of water to drown – Clint’s managing it with all the air in the world. 

When he emerges from what he’s sure is Indiana’s finest motel bathroom, Clint finds coffee from Killer Bean waiting for him on the nightstand beside what was supposed to be his bed for the night. Too bad his current state of existence aligns with exclusively sleeping on or next to things that you definitely shouldn’t sleep on or next to. Coulson sits at the edge of his own bed with one of the most quietly earnest looks he’s ever seen – and he fought aliens with _Captain America_ – settled on his face. That determination is strange to see on a Coulson not in a suit, and Clint just knows he won’t be getting out of this without having a conversation he doesn’t want to have. 

Something lurches in Clint’s gut. 

Seven hours later, Clint’s unlocking a storage unit in Storm Lake, Iowa. 

“She’s beautiful, Clint,” Coulson says, voice hushed like they’re in the crowded streets of some bustling city, not the Midwest on a Tuesday. 

Running his fingers over the purple and white paint of Petronia’s – _Clint’s_ now – 1970 Dodge Challenger, he cracks a smile at the smell of eucalyptus and cigars still clinging to the seats. “Yep, she’s a looker,” he replies, ignoring the broken “no-talking” rule. 

“I can call one of the juniors to come pick up the agency car and you can drive this home,” Coulson offers, stepping closer now with his hands clasped together. 

“How are you gonna get back?” Clint frowns. 

The bodily slump and exhale are simultaneous. “That’s why you let me come, then.”

For several seconds, he has no idea what Coulson’s talking about, but the lightbulb goes off. 

“That’s not it,” he denies. 

He didn’t let Coulson tag along so he could drive the SHIELD car back to headquarters. The plan was to make it so hard to retrieve that squirrels would eventually build a monument to it and curse the births of Nick Fury and Phillip J-who-the-fuck-knows Coulson with acorn installation art. 

“No?” Coulson says, rueful, discretely pulling at the sleeves of his sweater.

“No,” Clint repeats. “I needed time.” 

“For what?”

“To figure out how’ta say goodbye to you.” 

_To see you on my own terms, to see you not dead, to see you_ alive, he thinks. _One last time._

Coulson swallows audibly. “Clint, I know I don’t deserve the chance to give you an explanation, but _you_ deserve to hear one. I’d like to give you that, when you’re ready. If you ever are.” 

Throughout the drive, Clint’s been going back and forth between wanting answers and the Natasha Romanov way of survival. Once again, he’s too weak for the latter. 

“Soon,” is all he says. 

Worry pinches Coulson’s face as he nods, and Clint, angry as he is, can’t take the resignation that permeates Coulson’s entire being. 

“Soon,” he says again. “Just gotta see what’s around the bend for a little while.” 

“You wanted a boomerang arrow once,” Coulson smiles, eyes far away in 2005-Clint’s antics. 

“Still do. It comes back to you in the end,” Clint agrees. 

Straightening up the lines of Agent Coulson, Coulson pushes his shoulders back and unfolds the G-man sunglasses hanging from the neckline of his sweater. 

“Well, Agent Barton,” he intones, holding out a steady hand, “I’ll see you…soon.” 

Smoothly, Clint palms Coulson’s button compass as they clasp hands – he already slipped the pen dagger into one of Coulson’s pockets. 

“Boomerang, Sir,” Clint says, trying to drag one of the corners of his mouth upward, but gives up to go pretend-call Tasha. 

He just doesn’t want to watch Coulson drive away. Maybe he already has, what with all those contingency plans. 

The button’s sitting on the hood of the car when he comes back. 

Bastard. 

Driving is one of the few things Clint loves and hates for the exact same reason: it gives him time to think. Thinking for Clint is like excessive drinking for everyone else – he comes to a lot of conclusions, but the relevancy of those conclusions doesn’t often apply outside of the bar. Or the car. At the moment, his thoughts are like throwing back tequila shots amid the ill-suited background of upstate New York in the fall: 

He’s an absent pet-father. 

Was Fury right when he said he’ll be back at SHIELD in no time? Does he want him to be?

The car keeps pulling a little to the left. 

Like Natasha, Clint has a very specific set of skills, what the hell is he supposed to do with them? 

Stark could probably build a boomerang arrow. 

Saint Anthony of Padua was the finder of lost and stolen items – he’s only half certain his medallion’s in one of his boots. 

It wasn’t even that Coulson did something to him. He was just collateral damage. But he had thought Coulson didn’t believe in collateral damage, that Clint wasn’t collateral damage. 

That Clint wasn’t _just_ anything – 

“Mr. Barton,” a calm voice says inside his head. 

The last time a voice spoke inside of his head, he killed twenty-five people. 

If Clint thought the regular hyperventilation was bad, it’s got nothing on blacking out behind the wheel of a car. 

And if the cops find him, he’s going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble for the stuff in the trunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited for the next chapter, golly.
> 
> Should I change the overall summary for this fic? Suggestions? More tags?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello MTV, welcome to my winter break.

Clint may not see dead people – dead people that aren’t Coulson anyway, and _that’s_ still up for debate – but he does have a sixth sense for knowing when needles are close or getting close to his body. The wrist his hand shoots to wrap around is delicate and slender, and while Clint knows better than to stereotype other people’s wrists (see Natasha Romanov), he can’t help but think the combination of shriek and equipment clattering rules out HYDRA-affiliated evil scientist. 

“I’m not HYDRA,” a woman says on the tail end of a frazzled laugh. 

It’s not a great life: having to assume he woke up in the clutches of a terrorist organization more often than not, but it’s preferable to his near certainty that he didn’t say any of that out loud. 

“That’s what HYDRA would want me to think.” 

I think HYDRA would just tell you if they were HYDRA, Clint.”

There it is again. He didn’t tell her his name. Inhaling slowly, Clint takes stock of his body – not restrained to the surface he’s lying on aside from an IV line, still has his boots and hearing aids, and his second favorite knife in its newfound spot is a reassuring weight in his sleeve. 

Better yet, Clint doesn’t smell the dank mold of every prison cell he’s ever been in or hospital antiseptic. Score. 

“Huh, I guess we’ll never know,” he eventually says, absently deciding he’ll strangle whoever this woman is with the IV line if it comes to that. 

A muffled choking noise disrupts the muted murmur of a heartrate monitor. “Well, if you ever do want to know, opening your eyes is always an ingenious idea.” 

She’s right. And smart enough to be HYDRA, too.

Blinking through bleary eyes, Clint mumbles, “Good thing redheads love me.” 

_Excluding Barney, sometimes Natasha, and that pastry chef you really pissed off in Brussels_ , he thinks. 

“Yes, the allure is positively knee-weakening.” 

As his eyesight adjusts, blurry shapes become homey furniture and the possible HYDRA-affiliated evil scientist’s lab coat doesn’t have a skull-octopus on it. What it does have is a stylized X and Clint just can’t understand why cults are so obsessed with him. 

Groaning about how another hot redhead is probably going to try to kill him in the next couple of minutes isn’t the best use of his time, so he throws in a few dramatic head knocks in a hapless attempt to wake himself up. 

“Are you usually –”

The answer to that question is almost always a resounding yes, but Clint’s forced self-examination is brought to a halt by the front man of an 80s boyband making his grand entrance. Tall, slender, and serious are accurate descriptors, they’re just not the most conspicuous when a man is wearing a wraparound red visor. 

“Everything okay down here? I heard noises.” 

_You sure that’s not just your shades trying to tell you to put them out of their misery?_

“Clint,” Sunglasses nods, “It’s nice not to see you in a car wreck.” 

Oh god. Not the car, not the car, _not the car_. 

“It’s fine,” the woman says hurriedly. “We have…someone getting the dents out.” 

He can’t even muster up the strength to shoot her a look the relief is so overwhelming. 

“Y’know what I think is _nice_?” Clint says, swinging his legs off the table, “all the warm fuzzies I got stored up for the mind-reading lady and the 80s music video reject who know my name when I don’t know theirs.” 

“I’m Jean,” the woman smiles. 

Sunglasses hauls ass across the room with the vigor of a man being chased by 90s grunge. “Scott Summers,” he says, sticking out a hand. 

Christ, he’s like another Steve Rogers, just forty years after the original recipe went on ice. That’s about as comforting as Clint expected it to be. Which is…not at all. 

And because Clint can’t help himself, “Alliteration, nice. You know what they say about that.”

Their hands unclasp with an intensively pensive look on Scott’s face. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

“C’mon man, you don’t know the rule?” Clint asks, leaning back against the wall to fiddle with his IV port. Jean quickly intercepts him. “It’s like this: you’ve got your Wade Wilsons of the world, and then you’ve got your Reed Richardses. So what’ll it be, Scott Summers – batshit fucking crazy, or so straight and narrow that Daredevil cries leather-scented tears in your honor?” 

Scott frowns, lips scrunching in a moue of discomfort. “That can’t be consistent enough of a pattern to be a rule. If you want to be generous, it could probably be described as a fallible maxim but…” 

“In case you missed it,” Jean whispers conspiratorially, putting a Band-Aid on Clint’s hand, “He’s the second one. Wholeheartedly.”

“Guess I shoulda known. The guy _is_ wearing khakis.” 

Jean snorts and turns on a sharp heel to pull Clint’s jacket off a set of wall hooks. “Scott, honey, was there anything else?” 

“– we’d have to consider whether this maxim applies to someone’s alias. As in, should it only apply to someone’s real name, someone’s fake name, or should it especially apply to those who are alliterative in both respects –” 

Sheepishly, Scott’s hand reaches up to rub the back of his neck as if it’s a rare visitor when he finally cuts himself off. “Right. Yes. The Professor wants to meet Clint.”

That’s a cult leader’s name if he’s ever heard one, but “Nick Fury” is a porn star’s name and Clint worked for him for longer than he should’ve. Might as well meet whoever didn’t leave him for dead on the side of the road. 

“I’ll take him up,” Jean says, trailing soft fingers down Scott’s forearm. “Why don’t you go help with the car?” 

Despite their youth, Scott and Jean’s intimacy is a quiet, settled closeness to observe. Scott doesn’t turn his back to Jean; Jean doesn’t scold Scott for what can only be typical behavior for him; both Scott and Jean lean towards each other when they speak. Familiarity is a nasty thing to take for granted, Clint knows. The last human contact he had was under a bathroom door with the man who reminded him familiarity is a nasty thing to take for granted. Before Lok– _the incident_ , it was him and that very same man in New Mexico, Clint’s hands caked with red soil looking for arrowheads and geckos, and Coulson actually taking his lunch breaks to join him. His last memories of sex seem much farther away. Ever since Siberia and the whip scars, sleeping with people he doesn’t know has become next to impossible. Lying about hiking accidents and cougar attacks isn’t arousing in the least, but the pain Scott and Jean have gnawing in his chest has him missing something he’s never had. 

“Clint?” 

For the second time today, Clint opens his eyes when he shouldn’t have closed them to begin with. Scott’s gone and Jean stands at the door, waiting. 

“Huh?” he asks, shrugging into the jacket that has since appeared in his hands; he finds his container of floss and Coulson’s button in the left pocket. 

“Let’s go.” 

“Scott doesn’t make a good first impression,” Jean says, voice stilted as they ride in the most chrome elevator Clint’s ever seen. “He never has. But once –”

“Whoa, hey,” Clint interrupts, palms up. “I’m sure he’s great – looks like he likes control the way other people like heroin, but great. None’a that back there was about him. I saw a button and I pushed it. It’s kinda what I do.” 

Visibly deflating, Jean rests her shoulders against the wall of the elevator. Through the reflective surface, he spies a distorted scar on the back of her neck. She sighs once, then twice, before, “You get in these habits with people, _for_ people, and you don’t really know if you’re doing yourself or them any favors.” 

“Yeah,” Clint says, meeting the eyes of his own haggard reflection. “I get that.” 

Leading Clint down a hallway covered in cherry wainscoting, Jean keeps her head cocked slightly to one side, as if she’s listening to something. Knowing the limitations of his hearing, she very well could be attuned to sounds outside his radar, but his aids have yet to fail him that badly, especially in places as quiet as this one. Either way – where the hell is he? 

Wealth has an aura about it that goes beyond the material, making the world bigger for a select group of people, and making the world smaller for everyone else; it’s one that works to maintain an exclusivity by looking inclusive once you belong. _Money makes monsters_ , Clint learned in Monaco, but he also learned from experience that a lack of money makes a different kind. 

“New money talks,” Natasha had said during some mission-related gala in New Jersey. “Old money doesn’t have to.” 

Wherever he is – this house, mansion, estate, whatever – is old money. No flash, gaudiness, nor ostentatious displays. Though the strangest thing is, among the refinement, the highbrow opulence, the sophistication, there are signs people live here. And whoever owns the place doesn’t seem to mind that fact. Artworks have fingerprints on their heavy frames, the wooden floors are rife with scuff marks, and Clint can point out a few places on the walls where someone hasn’t quite managed to match the original paint color. 

It’s homey in a way that SHIELD isn’t, and it’s homey in a way any HYDRA facility _definitely_ isn’t. But a cult is a cult, and while Clint’s not sure what about his face screams “Indoctrinate me!” he’s thought he was walking to his death before this current walk, and that one turned out fine. What are the chances that happens again? Slim to none. 

Jean keeps shooting him increasingly concerned glances, and Clint’s getting the urge to reply with made-up hand signals because she still seems to be focused on something far away. He doesn’t get the chance. A right turn, a right turn, a left turn, another right turn, and a veering left have them at a door. 

Tied between “Thanks for whatever you pumped into me earlier” and “You were the second-best death escort I’ve ever had” as his parting words, Clint watches Jean clear her throat and tentatively reach for his hands. 

She’s just as surprised as he is when he lets her. “Clint, you’re going to be okay. Even if that’s not right now.”

“Really?” Clint laughs, dark and barking. “You like what you saw in there?” 

“You have one of the loudest minds I’ve ever encountered,” Jean grins. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned from loud thinkers up here,” she taps his forehead, “it’s that things are even louder right here,” a tap to the heart now. “You care, don’t stop.” 

“So…my loud heart is the light at the end of the tunnel?”

“No, that could be the light from a train. Or a flashlight that’s only going to get you so far. You’ll know once you start walking.” Jean motions to the knob. “Start walking, Clint.” 

Then it’s just him and a door. 

Clint’s played Clue once with Nat and Coulson – he still has the scar on his middle finger from a fork to prove it – and this room is a murder away from a real-life game. Clint Barton in the study with an antique letter opener, and that’s if things go _well_. He’s not going for _well_ ; he’s going for _alive_ since his pesky survival instinct can’t take a hint. Go figure. Being around breakables also happens to make him itch, so he carefully picks his way over to a beige couch, skirting around some guy’s bust, a mahogany coffee table, and a Persian rug. Sightlines aren’t optimal what with one wall taken up by a bookcase and the other covered with windows. An abandoned chess game sits adjacent to a high back chair facing toward the sunlight, a beam of which barely misses its red upholstery. Coulson liked chess. Clint’s a checkers man. 

The study is a room where Clint imagines rich men thinking rich men things – stocks, cufflinks, whiskey, silk robes. 

_Nice enough place to die,_ Clint thinks. 

Someone coughs from the doorway. “Pardon, Agent Barton?” 

“I can assure you, Clint, it’s not poisoned,” the Professor, Charles Xavier, repeats, endlessly patient. “You are among friends here.” 

Sat cross-legged with a photo album on his lap, Clint sips his twig water, unconvinced, as he surveys the pictures. Too much milk and sugar, but it’s not like he could make tea taste that much worse than it already does. 

“You run a school.”

“Yes.”

“For…gifted youngsters,” Clint reads from one of the photographs of the front gates. 

Nodding, the Professors wheels closer. “This is of myself and my colleague, Erik, when the school was founded in 1965.” 

Not missing the pause before “colleague,” Clint whistles. “You were hot back then, man.” 

“Were?” the Professor chuckles roguishly, a single eyebrow raising in question. 

“Oh, shit, fuck, no,” Clint stumbles, backtracking faster than most men do when they mistakenly flirt with Natasha. “You’re still hot. Like ouch, burning. I’d totally, y’know – but I was in this cougar attack. Hiking. Unless you’re into that, then we could…I’ve never been with a bald guy. Been with older men, though. Fuck, not that you’re old, it’s not a fetish or anything. This guy can come too,” he babbles, rapping on the photograph. “He’s not dead right –”

“Charles, are you going to stop him, or shall I?” the high back chair mercifully interjects. 

Mercifully or not, Clint’s second favorite knife is already sailing from his sleeve at the figure who’s since spun the chair to face the rest of the study. 

His knife stops in midair, floating an inch away from another old man’s eye. 

That tidbit of information would be much more interesting if the old man hadn’t been wearing a metal “aliens are out to get me” helmet. 

“If that will be all, Agent Barton,” the man smirks dryly, crossing an elegant leg over the other, “I thoroughly regret to inform you that the Professor is otherwise attached, and should this revelation send you on another spiraling lecture concerning your sexual prowess and willingness to sleep with older men, might I recommend not throwing sharp projectiles as your singular method of seduction.”

“That’s quite enough out of _you,_ Erik,” the Professor chides, plucking Clint’s knife out of the air, handing it back to him, hilt first. “Clint is experiencing considerable distress. Particularly if he believes I’ve lost my boyish good looks.” 

“To think this is the sort acting as our first line of defense against the world’s terrors,” Erik sighs, standing to move closer to the tea tray. He cranes his neck to peer into Clint’s cup. “And no taste in tea. The sacrilege.” 

Clint flicks the blade over his knuckles, spins it through his fingers, and tosses it with the tip of his index finger, catching it the same way. “Lucky for you, buddy, that’s not my gig anymore.” 

“How could it be with your incessant guilt complex.” 

“Erik –”

“No Charles, he isn’t a lost child you need to coddle. He’s a grown man who’s forgotten he is one.” Erik sits again, a metal spoon stirring his tea all on its own. His voice drips with false concern. “Tell me, Clint, where did your pathological need to punish yourself for the mistakes of others originate from? Freud would certainly make a perverse case for your parents.” 

Ears ringing and cotton in his mouth, Clint says hoarsely, “You don’t know shit about me.” 

Some small voice in the distant, deep corners of his mind whispers that he knows too much. 

“I don’t have to. I’ll extrapolate for you – a bad man who was indeed very bad did an equally bad thing and you were somehow on the fringes of that bad thing.” Smoothly, Erik leans forward and sips his tea, hushed but formidable. “But the part that keeps you awake at night, ashamed as you are about it, is that in the midst of that bad thing, you were worried most for someone you love.”

“Stop it,” Clint gasps, because maybe if he doesn’t breathe, he won’t beg. 

The Professor is suspiciously silent. Clint doesn’t know if the Professor knows Erik well enough to see that he won’t stop until he’s finished verbally eviscerating Clint, or if the Professor thinks this is what Clint needs to hear. 

“Then,” Erik continues, an undercurrent of energy radiating from his person, “through some convoluted story only you have a hope of understanding, you tell yourself this is your fault by involuntary association. And that all-consuming anger you feel, the kind that doesn’t fit under your skin? Isn’t going away simply because the person you love happens to be alright. Betrayal is a cold mistress, but we wallow in the aftermath all the same.” 

Pages of the photo album start to turn by an incorporeal hand, slowly enough that Clint can watch as larger and larger groups of students join the pictures. He can watch as the Professor stands alone until he reaches the photo where he isn’t standing at all. 

Burning eyes prevent Clint from noticing Erik’s approach toward his couch, but he feels something slip from his pocket. Coulson’s button sits suspended in his eyeline. 

Erik stares at it with him for a few stretched out seconds, but Clint knows how fights work – the finishing blow hasn’t been dealt yet. “Clint, there comes a time in any relationship, be it one of siblings, lovers, or friends, where we will do the worst thing we will ever do to that person. Sometimes, that thing is as insignificant as a lie to spare their feelings. Others, that thing is so devastating we change the very way someone exists in this world.” 

“What you have to decide, as we all do, is if that person is capable of worse, and if they’ll actually do it.” Letting the button clatter to the coffee table, Erik stands once again, lingering in the doorway. “Taking responsibility for our actions only becomes an honorable pursuit when they are _our_ actions. Were those _your_ actions, Clint?”

“He a shrink?” Clint laughs hysterically.

“Fortunately, he’s just a jackass, but a jackass with a point,” the Professor says, picking up the button and unscrewing its back, revealing the compass face underneath. “This is a lovely collectible.” 

“Yeah, my –” _Your what, Clint? Boss? Friend? Bastard?_ “– the guy who gave it to me has an epic hard-on for old spy gear and World War II.” 

Humming, the Professor spins the metal back together. “Clint, I sincerely hope you don’t think I asked to speak with you to subject you to Erik’s personal brand of…assistance.” 

“Don’t know you that well. Couldn’t say.” 

“It had been my intention to provide you with some strategies to help quiet your mind,” the Professor says, an abashed grimace on his face, “but Erik has a tendency to steamroll my undertakings.” 

“Why would you –” Clint stops himself. “You were the voice. In my head.” 

“Yes, I do apologize about your car. I hadn’t realized your aversion to telepaths until much too late.” 

Aversion is putting it nicely. 

“So, you saw…”

“Most everything that recently plagues you,” the Professor admits. “As I’m sure it’s a fruitless endeavor to persuade you of your innocence, I’ll ask you a question someone once asked me when I was perhaps your age: do you believe your choices make you who you are?”

What feels like a lifetime ago now, Clint remembers some shrink telling him, _“Choices under duress aren’t choices at all.”_

He remembers when he killed Barney. 

He remembers when he reached up and grabbed Coulson’s hand in an alleyway in Barcelona. 

He remembers bringing Nat in. 

He remembers all the people he’s saved, all the people he’s taken out. 

Of his own volition. 

“I do.”

He has to. 

Clint looks down to the Professor curling his fingers around the button. 

“In times of uncertainty, I would implore you to remember that.” 

This time, it’s Clint lingering in the doorway. His own question not ready to take the dive off his tongue. “Would you forgive him? If you were me.” 

The Professor doesn’t turn around from where he’s resetting the pieces of the chess game, the soft tapping of marble on marble echoes almost bitter with longing and the unsaid. “Is he capable of worse?” 

“Yes,” Clint says, unhesitating. If he knows anything about Phil Coulson, it’s that nearly everyone underestimates what he’s capable of. He won’t make the mistake of falling into that majority again. 

“Would he do so?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“When you know the answer to that, you’ll know what to do.” 

Incomprehensible thoughts swirl around Clint’s head, and if he were the type to get migraines, he thinks he’d have a new definition of agony. Most of what he’s stuck on isn’t even about him. It’s about the two men he met in that room, and the what-could’ve-been that lives between them. How Erik could do worse than what he did to the Professor, without a doubt had done so, and the Professor couldn’t forgive. At least couldn’t forgive enough that whatever fraying tether that keeps them tied together couldn’t be tested beyond the occasional game of chess. 

To Erik’s credit, Clint does feel better. The knife in his back has been pulled out, and the catharsis of the bleed has left him lightheaded but stiller. Not thrashing under endless water. There are edges to his guilt and he’s found one of them. It wouldn’t go on, and on, and on. 

Like Barney, all of this would be another thing Clint would have to live with. He just has to stay alive long enough to figure out that he actually can. 

Knowing what to do next depends on what Coulson has to say to him. Going back isn’t as easy as getting in his car when Clint can’t imagine a life where he forgives Coulson, and when he can’t imagine a life where he doesn’t forgive Coulson. Tactically disadvantaged isn’t how he likes to go into any combat zone. 

Something tells him this will be the fight of his life, no matter that he has a grenade of a question in his pocket. 

“G…for garage?” Clint asks himself, smacking the offending elevator button. 

_Well, it’s not fucking Gila monster, smart guy._

The doors to the elevator open with a speed Clint doesn’t expect, and he springs back to let a young woman into the space. He doesn’t mean to stare, but he realizes the faux pas probably doesn’t matter when he’s staring at a woman wearing a thick white blindfold around her eyes. 

“Nice to see you again, Clint,” the woman says cheerily, fingers running along the buttons before landing on 1. 

“Sorry, uh, have we met?” 

“Yeah, but that was the second time,” the elevator dings for the first floor, “and you were in better spirits then.” 

Second time?

“Good to know…?”

Stepping out, the woman calls behind her, “Tell Phil I said hello!” 

“I can barely tell Phil, ‘hello,’” Clint mutters as he’s let out on the elusive ‘G’ floor. “And who the hell are you?” 

It’s saying something that Clint hears them before he sees them.

“Slim, if I cared about what you thought, we wouldn’t have half the conversations we do.” 

“We wouldn’t have half the conversations we do if you could stand to listen to something besides the sound of your own voice.” 

“Been a fan of the sound of Jeannie’s –”

That’s not going to end well, so Clint trips himself into the garage. 

“Clint!” Scott startles, hooking a hand under Clint’s elbow to help him up. “Are you alright?” 

“Yep,” he grunts, grimacing at the new rip in the knee of his jeans. “Just clumsy.” 

“Yer an Avenger,” a gruff voice says, a potential smoker. “You can’t be clumsy.” 

A gruff voice he knows from a bar in Madripoor, and one in Whitehorse. He got punched in the jaw, hustled a grand from, and named a kitten after the guy who owns that voice.

Logan.

_You will not freak out, you will not freak out, you will not freak out_ , Clint chants because he’s the coolest, calmest guy he knows if he doesn’t think about everyone else he knows. 

“Somethin’ on my face?” Logan’s eyes narrow. 

Clint’s mouth opens and shuts, and Scott unknowingly saves him in the worst way. “Besides your face?” 

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad had Clint asked Logan if he had pissed off a witch, another mutant, and/or incorrectly answered a riddle in the past few years. 

“What was that?” Two faces are looking at him like he’s the one with metal claws or wearing the sunglasses of an 80s movie villain. 

“Didn’t say anything,” Clint says, edging for his car that looks as good as when he got it. Purple paint pristine, no scratches, and no dents. 

“Ya’ did,” Logan presses, arms flexing in a white tank top. “Somethin’ about me, a cat, and a riddle.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.” Leaning back against the hood of the Dodge, Clint waves a hand at the garage. “Probably just an echo.” 

“Clint,” Scott starts, amused. 

But he won’t be skewered today. “Can we get back to the part where Scott insulted your face?”

Metal hits his chest only to fall to his hands. His keys. Not giant stabby claws that nightmares are made of. “He’s said a whole lot worse. Haven’t ya’, One-Eye?” 

“We don’t need to visit memory lane,” Scott says, placating, but sharpness still lurks in his stature. “It wouldn’t be fair. Not like you can remember much of anything.” 

_Snikt._ Those definitely aren’t car keys. 

“Don’t need to know much to know how to punch your lights out,” Logan growls. 

“Thanks for fixing the car,” Clint blurts out. “She looks great.” 

“Oh, this wasn’t us,” Scott smiles, attention turning away from Logan – his feet don’t – and Clint’s lungs get reacquainted with oxygen. “Logan’s more the ‘steal other people’s motorcycles’ type of guy. Isn’t that right.” 

“It ain’t wrong,” Logan sneers. 

“Then who –”

“Hey,” a kid with short-cropped blonde hair says, sliding into the garage with a cold gust of air. “The Professor wants to talk to you two.” He points at Scott and Logan.

Logan puts the claws away. “What about?” 

The kid looks down at his arm, reading from black Sharpie scribbles. “Ah, workplace harassment and, quote, ‘how we behave when we have guests.’” Grinning, the kid looks at Clint. “Hi, guest.” 

Scott begins ushering everyone toward the stairs leading out of the garage with an apologetic backward glance. “Nice meeting you, Clint.”

“Bye, guest,” the kid yells. 

Resistant to Scott’s herding, Logan’s the last one to leave with, “Drive better, bub. Ain’t a good way to go out.” 

“Did,” Clint says to absolutely no one. 

Nine miles down the road, Clint texts Natasha. 

_Take a pic of Logan 4 me_

_I can’t find him. You get Lucky instead._

Lucky’s passed out on his back, the size of his paws not so ridiculous anymore, and free from the casts and doggy eyepatch. Has he been gone that long? 

_That creature ate pizza out of a trash can._

_Thatz my boi_

No Logan could mean a lot of things that aren’t secretly-a-human-man. Clint just can’t believe it until he sees both Logans at the same time. One day. 

_Come home, Clint._

_I’m trying_

Twelve miles down the road, Clint remembers to check the trunk. Popping it, he removes the false bottom, then the second false bottom, and slides his thumb onto the biometric lock. The smell of choji oil is faint on the black and gold fabric. Cloves and wood. Inhaling, he pushes the suit aside to open his sword case. Two katanas that haven’t felt the outside darkness in a decade stare accusingly back at him. This side of himself has always been a taunt, one that has a different allure than his bow. Ronin: The Masterless Samurai. 

Fifteen miles down the road, Clint catches the note tucked in the seam of his dashboard. 

_Clinton,_

_Should this find your fragile constitution well, I would expect you to return the favor for an old man far busier than you._

_Modest Regards,_

_Erik M. Lehnsherr_

Grumbling, Clint scrutinizes the coordinates at the bottom of the page. “Busier than me, my ass. I’m plenty busy.” 

_Doing favors for the old man that fixed your car._

His boot hits the gas, flooring it. 

Twenty-two miles down the road, Clint peers at the coordinates again. 

“Aw, wrong way, no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you're not X-Men fans. I couldn't help myself. 
> 
> Next time: Clint has to pick someone up. He just doesn't know who yet.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim Possible theme song plays:
> 
> BAMF Clint Barton alert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things you might want to familiarize yourself with if you find yourself so inclined to better understand the ridiculousness of Clint's life:
> 
> Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer."
> 
> The classic quotes from _The Princess Bride._

Clint’s been embroiled in life-and-death situations since he was sixteen, but nothing compares to the decision he has to make now.

Gas station Cheetos or Doritos?

Each of them is radioactive orange, crunchy, and will appropriately stain his fingers, and the cashier reading some Beethoven bullshit at checkout is almost guaranteed to judge him, so. Both it is.

Clamping the bags between his teeth, Clint fumbles in his wallet for the ancient prepaid debit card he had found under the seats of the Challenger. Right next to a half-eaten churro, a tube of lipstick, and a scratched Bon Jovi CD.

He had been a little floored that the coordinates had brought him to DC instead of the deep ocean or the middle of a forest. Drowning and starvation aren’t on his list of preferred ways to die, so he’s glad Erik’s actually turned out to be a murder-you-to-your-face type of guy.

_Anything to stall_ , Clint had told himself all the way down here, deliberately not considering that Erik hadn’t mentioned – more than likely on purpose – what he wanted Clint to do. That was future Clint’s problem. And future Clint was always older, which meant it would be a toss-up on whether he’d be wiser too.

The jingle of a bell near the doorway has his eyes briefly glancing up, clocking a man with a square-shaped head and bulky shoulders in a black sweatshirt.

Back to his wallet, there’s a casual “Is that everything, Sir?” from the cashier who gets a dismissive grunt in reply.

Dammit, that’s a ticket stub, not the card –

“Having a party?” the cashier asks, and Clint feels his shoulders stiffen.

“Granddaddy’s turning seventy-six this weekend,” the man says, slapping a money clip on the counter. “Gotta get a last one outta him before he croaks.”

“No,” Clint spits, snack bags falling out of his mouth.

For a split second, he watches the bags plunge toward their inevitable chip-breaking doom, but his hand darts out to catch one, his foot the other. “No, no,” he breathes out, crouching down to put on an award-winning show of: this shelf of beef jerky is the most interesting thing he’s ever seen since Brock Rumlow walked into a DC gas station using old SHIELD code phrases with a teenaged cashier who’s certainly in on it.

“No, no, no,” he mutters because the Oscar goes to Clint Barton for poorest fuck in an ensemble drama.

Had he known, he would’ve prepared a speech.

Asking “Having a party?” to any SHIELD operative was once a sign some bigwig was in-route to a particular location. “Granddaddy’s turning seventy-six this weekend” was Alexander Pierce’s. He’d be escorted to wherever by Rumlow and be there for exactly seventy-six minutes, ex-fil included.

“Gotta get a last one outta him before he croaks” is new to Clint, and the part of him getting thoroughly acquainted with a linoleum floor that hasn’t been swept since before the Reagan administration doesn’t want to know. But the part of him that will always be an agent – that will always be an assassin – knows information means a better chance of survival. A better chance of survival is a better chance of fucking with Rumlow.

“Couple drinks of that swill and everyone there might die with him,” the cashier jokes, bagging bottles, glass clinking.

A modified version of, _Is STRIKE Team Alpha present and accounted for?”_

“They’re ready to show him a good time.”

_Affirmative._

“Here you go,” the cashier says, passing over the bag of booze. “Have a good evening, now.”

_Acknowledged. Proceed as planned._

Another jingle of the bell accompanies Rumlow’s exit and Clint stands with a small mountain of beef jerky and his chips cradled in his arms.

“Ready, dude?” the cashier asks, nose in his book.

_Oh, I get ‘dude’ and he gets ‘sir’? I see how it is,_ he thinks viciously.

Dumping his bounty, Clint takes note of the security cameras for a second time – one in each corner, but the farthest camera from the entrance isn’t working. He had kept his head down and hood up coming in, though to do what he needs to do, all of them are going to have to “malfunction.”

Every green SHIELD agent has this job at least once – sit as backup to the backup to the backup within reach of an active mission or SHIELD facility. It teaches independence and low stakes undercover and informant work. Coulson has his classic bag of flour story from checking on a newbie because of it.

What has Clint on edge is the fact that SHIELD doesn’t hire teenagers. If they do, it’s for extenuating circumstances like Natasha – only one person in the world can do what she does – and even she stayed in training until she was twenty. Until she claimed she was twenty, that is.

This bumbling kid who calls Rumlow “Sir” is not the Black Widow.

Tempted as he is to text Nat where STRIKE Team Alpha is assigned on the books, he can’t help the itch under his skin that he’s bothering her with all his messages. Clint knows what it’s like to be a burden, to weigh down someone lighter than yourself. He can’t quite cut the anchor line yet, but he figures that he’s the one in the water – he’ll free himself to free her.

“Fuck,” the cashier curses, banging the price scanner on the counter and breaking Clint from his reverie. “Piece of shit. Sorry, I need to go get the other one from the back.”

“No worries man,” Clint waves him off, smiling what he hopes is pleasantly and not, I’m-about-to-fuck-your-shit-up-kiddo.

No worries at all.

SHIELD’s security cameras from the early 2000s were probably best used less for surveillance and more for hockey pucks. Just as durable, but outrageously expensive. Like everyone else, Clint had had this gig when he was green and remembers the cameras only trigger the silent alarm if over half the lens is covered. These cameras have the same serial numbers as the old ones if his distance and peripheral vision are to be trusted. Even concussed or close to dead, it always is.

Grabbing a pack of playing cards from a rack on the checkout counter, Clint pulls out three cards and shoves the rest of the pack closer to beef jerky mountain. Card throwing isn’t so much about force or a strong grip as it is about the wrist – the top of the card goes between the index and middle fingers of his left hand, the side rests along his palm, and the bottom hits the heel of his hand. Then it’s a matter of flicking three times to block the cameras.

He has just enough time to find his debit card.

“Francis Bon-Bon?”

“There a problem with that…” Clint looks down at the cashier’s name tag, “Carl?”

“No,” Carl says, handing Clint back his ID. “It’s just,” he starts again, betraying his very smart first instinct to shut up, “unique.”

“Unique?” he repeats, voice bordering on shrill. “You think my dying grandmother’s maiden name is _unique_?”

Carl pales, propelling the red freckles on his face into stark relief. “Not in a bad way, man. Is it European?” he asks hesitantly, clutching the new price scanner.

“French,” Clint says, forlorn, bullying tears to well in his eyes – he’s got nothing on Natasha, but he gets there. “She’s all the way in France, dying, and I can’t afford to go see her. For the last time.”

Radiating discomfort, Carl reaches across the counter and awkwardly pats Clint’s hand once, twice. “I’m sure she understands. And hey, your stuff is on me.”

Between the second and third hand pat, Clint uses his unoccupied hand to yank Carl forward by his wrist, taking advantage of the forward momentum to twist him onto his back, catching an errant punch and pinning the kid’s wrists above his head.

Eyes clear and voice steady, Clint quirks his lips at Carl’s remaining struggle. “I appreciate the gesture, Carl. I really do. You’re a forever friend. But a couple’a tenners aren’t gonna solve my problem. S’just, a…unique situation, is what it is.”

“Unique?” Carl repeats, body still.

“Not in a bad way, well, for me anyway.”

Feet kicking out again – in the direction Clint knows the panic button is but unable to reach it – Carl’s agitation begins with renewed fervor. “Take whatever you want from the register. Just please don’t –”

Aw, please, no.

“Look, I’m not here to kill you or take your damn money. All you gotta do is answer a question and we can go our separate ways.”

“Anything.”

_Anything, he says. This kid did not pass counter-interrogation training with flying colors._

“The guy from earlier. Where’d he go.”

Carl _does_ pull a good confused face, wrinkling his forehead and scrunching his brows. “What? That guy was a customer. How am I supposed to know where he went?”

“That guy is your boss. He’s SHIELD, you’re SHIELD, and I need to know.”

Clint’s intimidation chops are pleased when the kid doesn’t double down on an I’m-just-a-cashier story. “I can’t tell you,” Carl grits out through his teeth.

“C’mon, SHIELD forgives young and stupid. Better now than when you’re old and stupid.”

Seeming to consider this, Carl finally wails, “If I tell you, they’ll never let me out of the mailroom!”

“Hey, don’t shit on the mailroom. I liked the mailroom. Easiest set’a felonies I ever got,” Clint says fondly, snagging one of his beef jerky sticks, ripping the package open with his teeth.

For nine and a half days of what should’ve been a month, Clint had done his rotation in the mailroom sorting, delivering, and reading other people’s mail using a combination of steam from the restroom sinks and a dull butter knife he nabbed from the cafeteria – he had disarmed bombs less difficult than finagling envelopes into unsealing without any tears.

Trust him to get embroiled in a bitter divorce battle via mail. Per the documents between their lawyers, Rachel in analytics and Carla in R&D were filing for wildly different reasons – Rachel had marked adultery and Carla had marked irreconcilable differences – and were fighting over the custody of their dog, Panda. After Clint figured out Carla was full of shit (and that Panda had the audacity not to look like a panda), he secretly smuggled the real Panda to Rachel, leaving Carla a look-alike that took him nine days to find.

_”Do I want to know, Barton,” Coulson had said, not asked. Because no, Coulson really hadn’t wanted to know, but that had never stopped Clint._

_Clint had lifted his chin with narrowed eyes. “You can’t prove anything.”_

_An angling of Coulson’s head toward the security cameras had told him otherwise._

_“I like envelope glue? It’s ‘My Strange Addiction’ gold, Sir,” Clint had offered weakly._

_“And is your enjoyment of said envelope glue contingent on reading the contents of those envelopes?” Coulson had asked, subtly steering Clint out of the mail room._

_“Yes?”_

_“Does the dog theft follow suit?”_

_“We can’t all get our rocks off by organizing our pens by width, Sir.”_

_“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Agent. I organize my pens by poison. Now come on, you’re on deep standby duty.”_

_They had been most of the way down to the garage before Clint had choked out a sputtering of the word “poison.”_

“– 0.37” N, 77° 3’ 11” W.”

Right, Carl. Rumlow. Favors. Priorities.

“What was that?” Clint asks, talking around his mouthful of jerky.

“38° 54’ 0.37 N, 77° 3’ 11” W.”

Going stock still, Clint’s hands unknowingly tighten around Carl’s wrists.

“Ow, ow, ow,” Carl whines. “I’m telling the truth!”

“I know you are, kid,” Clint replies, relaxing his grip on Carl’s wrists. “You wouldn’t look like you were about to piss your pants if you weren’t.”

“So you’re gonna go now?”

“Yep.”

“…”

Carl’s eyes glance over at Clint’s purchase. “Hey, can I get some beef jerky?”

“Snitches don’t get beef jerky,” Clint smirks, lifting Carl’s upper body off the counter by the grip on his wrists.

“But you said –”

The crack of Carl’s head colliding with the counter startles Clint and he’s the one who dropped him. Gathering his bounty – save for a single stick of beef jerky – Clint vaults over the counter, making his way to the “Employees Only” door. Inside, he finds what he can only assume is an emergency exit and what must be Carl’s cello case. He carefully maneuvers the cello out as fast as he can – he’s got plans for the case.

More importantly, he’s got plans spinning around for those coordinates. That’s what happens when they just so happen to match the ones Erik gave him not forty-eight hours ago.

It’s a bank. Ideal Federal Savings Bank. Abandoned though it is to the general public, Clint’s been staking out the entry points and guard rotation for the last hour. He’d bet there are underground entrances and exits, but he doesn’t have enough darkness left to go traipsing around the sewers, which leaves him with the doors using facial recognition software. Yawning, his eyes trail over the neighboring buildings. Directly behind the bank is a high-rise apartment building, thirty stories at a glance – no doorman but it does have a door buzzer system; tailing someone in shouldn’t be difficult, so he makes a note of a handful of dark windows and hoists the cello case up onto his back.

Fortune for the day comes in the form of an exhausted college student. Clint sticks tight to the guy’s path until Clint spots the bay of elevators, pressing the button for the twelfth floor and the first of his tries at an empty apartment. The doors are about to close when he hears a breathless, “Hold the elevator.”

Unconsciously, Clint’s hand darts out to stop the doors from closing and a slightly harried man gets on. Rarely is Clint ever inspired to describe a man as beautiful, but this one is with his dark skin, high cheekbones, and perfectly groomed facial hair. Whoever he is, he’s rundown, sleep deprived if the pinched, heavy blinks are anything to go by, though Clint still sees a desperate yearning in this man to hold onto a peace he seems to have lost the same place he probably gained the darting eyes and shake in his hands.

Clint knows hypervigilance when he sees it, and only two kinds of people look like that on a Wednesday at one in the morning.

“Thanks man.”

“No problem.”

By the fourth floor, the air in elevator has settled; by the sixth floor, Clint’s elevator buddy has decided it’s time to disturb that.

“You a vet?”

Nothing about Clint’s clothes say veterinarian, but for about half a minute, he tries to figure out what about himself comes across as a savior of animals when _veteran_ finally occurs to him.

The thing is, Clint’s been in his fair share of war zones, but he still stumbles over, “Oh, ah, no. You?”

Elevator buddy grimaces a smile like there’s simultaneously nothing more and nothing less he’d like to talk about. “Got back about a month ago. And I seem to keep assuming everyone else up at this godforsaken hour has gotta be in the same boat.” There’s some shuffling in his pockets before elevator buddy sticks out a hand. “Sam Wilson.”

Dammit. Clint doesn’t know what it is about elevators nowadays that make people want to start emotional confessions with him. “Clint Barton,” he says, chanting silent little prayers to himself Sam doesn’t think twice about his callouses. “You know what they say about assuming, Sam Wilson?”

Sam gives him a real smile. “It makes an ass out of you and me.”

“Nah, sometimes you’re right. That’s why you keep doing it.”

“This isn’t my sometime, huh,” Sam says, watching the numbers ticking off the floors grow higher.

“‘Fraid not,” Clint murmurs, wondering if Sam’s claustrophobic or if he’s still in a rush.

“So what _do_ you do, Clint?” Sam asks.

That’s a great question: _What does Clint do?_

He could say he’s a federal agent. That would explain the callouses. He could say he works at a gun range. That would also explain the callouses. He could be as honest as Sam was with him and say he’s a recently unemployed federal agent with a very particular set of skills that he’s acquired over a very long career – but what if Sam doesn’t like Liam Neeson? – and has recently turned to doing favors for angry old men. (Upon further reflection, that last one was pretty much his job at SHIELD to begin with, he just used to get paid for it.)

Somewhere in the far recesses of his mind that look a lot like under the seats of the Challenger, he reaches for, “Used’ta work on the docks. But the union’s been on strike, so I’m sorta down on my luck.”

A glimmer of amusement flickers in Sam’s eyes. “Now you busk,” he guesses, “with a…cello?”

Abruptly defensive of an instrument he doesn’t play, Clint insists, “It’s the upper-class guitar.”

“I think the upper-class guitar is just a more expensive guitar.”

“And what do you play, music man?”

“Right now, Scrabble with my therapist,” Sam frowns, eyes on the numbers again, not because he’s worried he won’t be on time, but because a large part of him never wants to get there.

“Is he psychoanalyzing the words you play?” Clint grins to himself. “You spelled out the word ‘tank,’ Sam. Let’s talk about your dreams on the third Tuesday of every month.”

Chuckling, Sam’s shoulders miraculously start to rest on the wall. “Man, I was Air Force. Pararescue. Doc thinks I talk better when my hands are busy.”

Whatever’s going on his head, Sam is obviously proud of his service; it’s a shame it looks to be underscored by the special brand of guilt Clint knows all too well.  
The elevator dings and the doors slide open.

“Fine, play ‘plane’ for me.” Clint nods at the doors. “This is your stop, flyboy.”

Sam levels him a look. “Flyboy, that’s how it is?” He steps out of the elevator with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Here I was gonna throw a bone in your cello case, Bon Jovi.”

Well, Clint’s been found out. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ isn’t even his best song, Clint. Try the _Trouble Man_ soundtrack. Get some taste, man,” Sam calls out, voice carrying down the hallway of the eleventh floor.

“You can tell your shrink I also listen to ABBA,” Clint yells, and he’s satisfied with the gutted sound Sam makes as the elevator doors slide closed.

“Lucky number twelve,” Clint hums while he picks the lock on apartment 12F.

Wafts of wet paint, drywall, and freshly cut wood hit him as he picks his way through the stray construction equipment strewn around the newly renovated apartment. Unsnapping the lid to the cello case, Clint pulls out his katanas and the Ronin suit, changing quickly so he can see what the window situation is. No balcony, just a single window looking out over the domed top of the bank. Without his bow, he can’t easily shoot a line and slide down, but he does have a grapple hook and rope, some duct tape, and his swords.

Years on the run have taught him the way to break a window isn’t to hit the center – the sweet spots are the sides and corners. He drives his swords home and the glass breaks in four big pieces, not thousands of tiny shards. Roll of duct tape between his teeth, he braces his swords blade to blade and begins to wrap them together. Finished, it’s not his bow, but he should be able to slide down the rope when the time comes. Edging out onto the ledge under the window, he closes his eyes to the wind and secures Ronin’s hood over his head. Now it’s time for the greatest throw of his life.

Gravity works somewhat in his favor as he tracks the sailing arc the grapple hook cuts through the sky before it’s falling out of even his sight. He doesn’t know if it caught on anything, so he starts pulling on the rope. About twenty feet of line is left when the rope pulls taut, and he begins to secure it to the ledge using the ridiculous knots that held up the big top from his circus days.

One half of his sword-stick over each side of the line, he risks a quick “Black Widow, who?” in deference to his super awesome spy skills before he steps off the ledge and into the open air.

It’s the closest to flying outside of a plane he’ll ever get, and it’s a rare fleeting ecstasy Clint hasn’t experienced since the last time he was strategically falling with substandard equipment. That feeling lasts for twenty-six seconds. Then, he’s yanking his sword-stick off the line and ducking into a somersault.

His shoulder hits cold stone and for a moment he’ll remember less than fondly for the rest of his life, he curses Erik M. Lehnsherr to the smoggy night skies of DC.

“Son of a fuck,” Clint says, sitting cross-legged to hack the tape off his swords with his third favorite knife.

Swords sheathed, he cuts the line, pockets a short strand of the rope, and pops the grate off an entrance to the bank’s ventilation system.

“Should’a just knocked on the front door,” he sighs, bracing his hands and feet on each side of the vent, prepared for a long slide down.

Office space and filing cabinets take up the first three floors, nothing sinister or favor-worthy beyond some security cameras that don’t look like they work, but knowing SHIELD, they probably do. Farther down he goes.

Deep in the dank lower levels of the bank, Clint’s starting to think he’s not in Kansas anymore – and by Kansas he means SHIELD facility – because nothing about the mazelike hallways, green-tinged shadows, and the heavy air wet with bleach even roughly parallels SHIELD’s sparsest bases of operation. The guards outside should’ve given it away (and the lack of guards thus far _inside_ ): everyone that should know about this place is already here, and everyone that shouldn’t know about this place is already dead.

This isn’t a SHIELD facility.

If any part of him was left unsure, the vivid sense of déjà vu he gets at staring at the metal door at the end of the hall with a wheel hatch that reminds him of a submarine would’ve done the trick.

HYDRA.

He knows what’s behind that door. He knows what’s at the bottom of those stairs.

He doesn’t know if this time someone will be sitting in that chair.

The staircase is lit like the last time in Belarus, and he inches his way down, drawing a sword to the sound of a familiar voice.

“Affirmative. Alpha Team has vacated the premises. ETA for Rollins and me – eight minutes. We’re just waitin’ on the freezer.”

Peeking around the corner, the space is the same – almost circular, the bay of computers, and the dental chair – but the exposed pipe and lock boxes lining the walls are new additions Clint would’ve told the interior decorator to do without. Getting rid of Rumlow is a given, though he can’t see him from his position behind the computer monitors.

Rollins, on the other hand, is maybe three steps in front of Clint with his back completely turned to the staircase. His poor, poor knee.

Rumlow must be fucking around on his phone despite the fact he’s finished his call, so Clint makes his move and drives his foot into the back of Rollins’s knee just as his hand darts out to block his scream. Using his free hand, Clint hits him over the head with the hilt of his sword and gently lowers his limp body to the ground.

Long, buzzing seconds pass of Clint digging through Rollins’s pockets – the guy lies about his age on his driver’s license – until:

“Jack, stop holding your dick and get it prepped.”

“…”

“Jack?”

“Guess again,” Clint says, voice rough and pitched low because Ronin’s everything Hawkeye isn’t – darker, faster, meaner – and…

Clint bursts out laughing. “The fuck are you wearing,” he gasps, trying to catch his breath at his first glimpse of Rumlow’s ensemble.

Quality of the body armor aside, Clint can just imagine Rumlow’s stupid square head as he sits and spray paints a crossbones onto the vest and a skull onto the helmet tucked into the crook of his arm. Considering Clint usually runs around in black and purple bullet resistant muscle tanks, he doesn’t really have the space between Rumlow’s brain cells to talk, but someone already wore it better.

“Barton?”

“You look like a knock-off Punisher,” Clint wheezes.

Steps starting to advance toward Clint, Rumlow shoves his helmet onto his head, but stops moving altogether when he sees Rollins’s friendship with the floor. “Tryin’ out some new field equipment,” he growls. “He dead?”

“He can get that way,” Clint smirks, his boot turning Rollins’s head this way and that while his sword hovers over his neck.

“What do you want?” Rumlow asks, and concern may be the most unnatural emotion Clint’s ever seen on his face.

“Was hoping for the villain origin story,” Clint says, turning his gaze from Rollins to Rumlow so he can stare out from the dark expanse under his hood, “but I’m starting to think it’s not any more interesting than daddy not loving you enough. Or, y’know, daddy not loving you at all.” He pauses and runs through actual logistics. “Oh, and your phone.”

“You know just as well as I do, Barton, SHIELD don’t do hostage negotiations.”

“Good thing you’re not SHIELD.”

Rumlow’s sneer is audible behind the mask. “Look around, Barton. Fury ain’t the biggest boss man.” Clint watches Rumlow paw at his phone around his gauntlets, discretely pressing a button on its side. But nothing escapes his eyes, different get-up or not. “You remember don’t’cha? Traitor in the making and you just couldn’t see it. How’s it feel, huh? To have nothing? Not even that little bitch Coulson could stand you – he must’a gotten tired of takin’ it up the ass.”

“And no Romanov? Would’a at least thought you’d have your little Russian wh–”

The next thing Clint knows, there’s a helmet bouncing on the floor and his sword is in Rumlow’s mouth. It hasn’t cut anything; it’s simply resting between two different outcomes: one where Rumlow keeps his tongue, and one where Clint cuts it out of his mouth and feeds it to him.

“Keep running your mouth, Rumlow, and I might just give it a back door.”

No one talks about Nat or Coulson like that. No one.

Killing Rumlow is a finger-itching possibility and only a slip of his sword away from reality. What has Clint not stabbing Rumlow repeatedly is whether anyone will believe him that Rumlow and Rollins and probably the entirety of Strike Team Alpha are HYDRA. Worse, Pierce was here, and if the octopus Nazi problem goes that high, there’s no telling where Fury, Hill, and other high-level agents stand. SHIELD could be made up entirely of sleeper agents, and who knows who’s awake?

That’s not counting the sneaking suspicion Clint has that Rumlow isn’t his kill.

For the time being, the attention’s not worth it.

Sliding his sword out of Rumlow’s mouth, Clint laughs harshly as Rumlow takes several hurried steps back. “You of all people shouldn’t have two holes to talk out of. Sorry, make that three.”

“You’re off your fucking rocker,” Rumlow says, voice rough like Clint had actually choked him.

_And you aren’t?_ Clint has the time to think before Rumlow’s phone is hitting his chest. It bounces and Clint catches it in his right hand, flicking his thumb over the screen in a half-assed parody of going through Rumlow’s contacts.

He stalls for a good thirty seconds, waving the phone at Rumlow who’s getting tenser and tenser.

“You counted wrong,” Clint says, waving the phone again, “These are three minutes. Not two.”

And then Clint throws the phone at the space between Rumlow’s collar and the top of his vest. “Tick, tick, boom.”

A starburst of white on Rumlow’s person is punctuated by a guttural scream, and never has Clint been so grateful to have read a manual from SHIELD R&D for once in his life.

Smoke dissipating, Clint’s nose wrinkles at the distinct smells of burning flesh and Kevlar. SHIELD’s phone bombs don’t contain a lot of pure explosive – they’re primarily a hybrid of a flash grenade and a smoke bomb – but they do pack a punch, which is lucky for Rumlow’s face and not so lucky for his temper.

Initially, Clint had dismissed the gauntlets of Rumlow’s suit, but as he comes lunging through the rest of the smoke charred and bloody with seven-inch blades emerging out of each of said gauntlets, Clint starts to think this may be a two-sword job.

Metal clashes against metal and Clint bares his teeth under Ronin’s hood. They swipe and dodge for minutes on end, Clint staying just out of the arc of Rumlow’s blades. In a move not unlike what he would do with his bow in close quarters, Clint angles one of his swords straight down and lets Rumlow come full force at the other, launching it out of his hand. With Rumlow’s blades at his throat, Clint pulls his hood off with a flourish.

“Something wrong?”

Bewildered, Rumlow shouts, “You threw a bomb at my face!”

“You’re saying that like you didn’t do it first,” Clint keeps a blank expression at the nick to his cheek. “And now you have a helmet, which y’know, you definitely could’a had before the whole throwing a bomb at your face thing.” A nick to the other cheek.

“Then there’s the whole thing with your foot.”

Impossibly more bewildered, Rumlow repeats, “The thing with my f–"

His remaining sword is driven down into Rumlow’s right foot to a hiss of pain, Clint ducking his right hook to stab his third favorite knife into the elbow joint of Rumlow’s suit and twisting until he hits bone. He takes a glance to the ribs for the unnecessary move, but he’s already grabbed his occupied sword and located the other in his periphery closer than he expects.

“You’re dead, Barton.”

“Okay,” Clint replies, looking down at Rumlow’s bloody footprint as he leads him backward to the beautiful music of Clint’s bloody knife clattering against the concrete. “If you can walk that far.”

Objectively, Rumlow is stronger than Clint, always has been, but he’ll take someone who fights like Rumlow over someone who fights like Natasha any day, so when his heel hits the hilt of his sword, he flicks it into his hand and crosses his blades.

Their weapons braced together, Clint feels his center getting closer to the floor from the force of Rumlow’s weight until he’s almost dropped to his knees.

“Last words?” Rumlow whispers, breath hot and acrid.

“Should’a shot me,” Clint suggests helpfully, and he lets go of his swords.

The sudden lack of friction has Rumlow flipping over Clint’s shoulder. During his tumble, Clint snags the SIG strapped in Rumlow’s thigh holster, and without glancing behind him, aims the gun and empties the cartridge.

Clint touches his fingertips to his cheeks, frowning as he prods the edges of the wounds. They’re deeper than he thought.

“Smarter than you look,” Rumlow coughs, head leaning against the jamb of the doorway, his bullet-ridden body splayed out and twitching.

None of the twelve bullets hit anything vital; that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to take hits to the arms, legs, and upper shoulders.

“Don’t matter how smart you are,” Rumlow coughs again, ruddy and wincing, “You can’t run from what you can’t see.”

Footsteps like a drumbeat, Clint looms over Rumlow’s prone form. “I’m a hawk, motherfucker.”

Part of his favor to Erik or not, driving a knee into Rumlow’s face and then smacking his limp head against the wall for good measure was a public service all its own.

Unlike Belarus, the bay of computers doesn’t generously offer Clint the chance to continue his session, and all Rumlow’s wallet yields is a singed piece of paper.

“Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на Родину. Один. Товарный вагон,” Clint mutters aloud to himself as he reads.

“Ready to comply.”

And Clint’s heart falls down to his ass.

Dental chair population: 1.

“Um, what?”

Silent, the man in the chair has an impressive thousand-yard stare, and Clint would be more concerned about that if the shiny metal arm he’s sporting wasn’t a shiny metal arm. Clint’s only heard infrequent details from Nat and the intelligence community, but their paths have never crossed as fellow snipers and assassins. The best kind of ghost stories are the ones that are real.

Though Clint’s lost on what to do with the Winter Soldier ready to comply.

Rollins’s phone ringing breaks Clint out of his thoughts, and the Soldier’s attention doesn’t move from him. Fighting not to squirm, he checks a watch he doesn’t have.

“Fuck. Follow me.”

They’re booking it down a suspended wraparound catwalk five minutes later, the Solider obediently staying at Clint’s six. It takes the same amount of time for Clint to ascertain that the man won’t respond or react to anything that isn’t phrased as an order. A dizzy sickness hits Clint at that, a coldness right where a spear touched his chest not too long ago. But he has to get them both out of here, and if that’s what it takes. That’s what it takes.

Below, there’s a door three men in black tac gear are loitering around, an exit if Clint’s ever seen one.

“Hold,” Clint says quietly, and the Soldier nods with a snap.

_Jesus Christ, buddy,_ Clint thinks, _you’re gonna be the one to kill Rumlow. And Rollins. Two-for-one special._

Climbing the rail surrounding the catwalk, Clint steadies himself for a quick second before jumping off in the direction of an overhead pipe. His palms connect with the metal in a near soundless thud, swinging his lower body up to hang upside down by his knees. The rope from the line he cut earlier goes between his teeth, and his container of dental floss is dropped in the middle of the rough triangle the three men are standing in.

“No one ever looks up,” Clint sighs, watching the men stare confusedly at the floor.

Then, for the second time today, he falls. Strategically.

Onto the shoulders of Man #1 with a crunch. Men #2 and #3 are so shocked Clint has time to pull a Black Widow by bracing his foot on Man #3’s knee and swinging his legs up and around the man’s neck. He tightens his thighs while delivering a swift stab to the clavicle of Man #2 before slapping the side of his head with the flat of his sword. Man #3 is still pounding Clint’s thigh with his fist, so he loosens his legs and tries the rope instead. Down in a blink.

“With me,” Clint gestures to the Soldier while stepping over bodies to retrieve his floss container.

That’s a seventh use for dental floss to add to his nonexistent list.

The Winter Soldier sitting in the passenger seat of a Dodge Challenger shouldn’t be funny – and for the most part it’s not – but the Winter Soldier sitting in the passenger seat of a Dodge Challenger directing his thousand-yard stare at a bag of Cheetos and a stick of beef jerky is as out of the ordinary as it gets that Clint can’t help but laugh internally. He has to make it a point not to find humor in the limp detachment of the man sitting next to him. Rumlow had called the Solider _it_ , and Clint will hurt himself before he makes anyone else feel like a thing.

_omw home,_ Clint texts Nat, because he has the strange feeling he's completed his favor.

_Road trip log hour 1:_

“Please eat if you’re hungry.”

“The asset’s caloric intake is sufficient for approximately thirty-six more hours.”

Damn the consequences – Clint should’ve killed them.

All of them.

_Road trip log hour 3:_

“So…I’m Clint. Nat says I’m a Gemini and that it’s bad. I don’t like long walks on the beach – jellyfish freak me out.” He eyes his road trip buddy’s metal arm. “I also don’t like being strangled. You?”

“Strangulation is an efficient method of execution, taking less than ten seconds for a target to lose consciousness.”

“Neat.”

_Road trip log hour 5:_

“You into ABBA?”

“…”

“Yeah, me too,” Clint says, “Best band ever.”

Sam Wilson can eat his CDs.

_Road trip log hour 7:_

“Hey buddy, there any trackers in your, uh, arm?”

“Negative. All trackers are removed from the asset prior to the chamber since their fragile structural integrity cannot withstand absolute zero temperatures.”

Toasty.

_Road trip log hour 9:_

“Home sweet home, bucko,” Clint breathes out, pulling the car into park and unbuckling his seatbelt.

Something flickers in the Soldier’s eyes, there and gone. Hesitantly but unprompted, he follows Clint up the apartment stairs.

Huh.

It’s nice to see his building is the same amount of charmingly rundown with the creaky stairs, the occasional unknown stain, and the curls of peeling wallpaper.

“Good morning, Clint. Clint’s friend.” Simone smiles at them when they cross paths on the fourth floor, Georgie on her hip but her eyes on the suit Clint didn’t bother to change out of. Oops.

“Mornin’ Simone. Kiddo,” Clint offers, angling his body to shield the Soldier’s left arm. “How are you?”

“I’m good. Work’s good, the kids are good.” She leans closer to Clint. “You know what would make me even better?”

Is he supposed to answer that?

Simone takes his chin in her hand. “If you’d clean the damn blood off your face. This may be New York, Clint, but we’re not reenacting _The Princess Bride_.”

No. No he was not supposed to answer that.

“As you wish,” Clint gulps.

Humming, she starts back down the hall toward the stairs. “Damn right, buttercup.”

Visions of a bed, shower, and sandwich are dancing in his head as Clint and the Soldier stand in front of apartment 4D.

“Here we g–”

Clint stops his hand on the doorknob at the faint sound of multiple voices carrying from inside. God, does he desperately need to take out his aids.

“He’s gentle, Coulson. Soft in all the right places. I won’t let him lose it because you’re martyring yourself.”

Well, that answers that. Nat and Coulson are having a conversation in his kitchen. The kitchen in his apartment. Coulson is in his apartment. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“I don’t think mart–” Coulson starts, cutting himself off. “Understood, Agent Romanov.”

“Good. And I’m glad you’re back.”

“It’s good to be back. Mostly.”

“You don’t think you can fix this.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes, but in the end, it’s still up to Clint.”

“How convenient. We can ask him now.”

Natasha swings the apartment door open, eyes zeroing in on Clint’s shadow.

“Clint brought a friend,” Clint says weakly, stopping his aborted movement to go for jazz hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Phlint confrontation is up next. Brace yourselves.
> 
> Also, "Tick, tick, boom" comes from an episode of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's The Talk. Not the sex talk, but how funny would that have been?

Lucky pisses out of excitement when he first sees Clint again after getting hauled into the apartment by his ear. He’d be a lot more flattered if he wasn’t the one who had to clean it up.

Logan, the shit, ignores him besides the swipe at his ankle because his cat has gone and fallen in love with the Winter Soldier in the span of seven minutes. They’re both parked by the apartment’s bay window, the sun catching in the Soldier’s scraggly hair and Logan _licking_ his metal arm.

A flick to his already abused ear has Clint looking up at Natasha’s murderous face from his sprawl on the Belarus couch. Coulson’s sitting a few feet away in Clint’s leaking bean bag chair and swallowed by his oversized Loyola sweatshirt.

“Comfy?” Clint taunts.

Coulson had to have seen Clint takes his aids out because he awkwardly attempts to shift in the bean bag chair so Clint has a better view of his mouth, enunciating smoothly. “Much. Thank you for asking.”

“Mm,” Clint hums, assholery interrupted by Nat taking a seat on the coffee table in front of him, Clint’s make-a-hospital-jealous first aid kit next to her hip.

She stares at him for a long time, his desire to squirm worse than when the Soldier’s gaze was on him. “How was your vacation, Barton?”

This feels like another one of those questions Clint isn’t supposed to answer, but Nat uses silence as a weapon, and she knows he’ll eventually fill it.

“One for the books,” Clint says reaching for the first aid kit only to get his hand slapped.

“Aw, hand, no.”

“It must have been,” Nat says, throwing the lid open forcefully to grab at some iodine and cotton swabs, “for you to come back here – after a month – looking like that childish man from that childish movie,” she grabs his chin softly with her small hand to start on his cuts, “with _him_ following you around like a lost duckling.”

“Yeah,” Clint winces when the iodine hits his cheeks, eyes trailing over to the Solider who looks as if he’d like nothing more than to fall asleep in the late morning sun, though his posture stays stubbornly alert, “I’m feeling pretty good about it.”

In a rare display of speechlessness, Nat’s mouth opens infinitesimally and promptly shuts. His bandages are applied a little more aggressively.

“He’s dangerous, Clint,” her head dipping down like she’s lowering her voice. “He could kill us all.”

If anyone would know, it’d be Nat, whose life was spared by that very same man in the Red Room, and who almost killed her again with a bullet through the stomach to get to his intended target.

“Hey,” Clint says lightly, starting to strip off his body armor as Nat pokes the spot directly above where Rumlow glanced his ribs, “I think we’d do alright. You, me,” Clint turns to Coulson, “and the backstabber. M’sure Coulson here has some resurrection tips up his sleeve. Don’t you, Sir?”

The moment “backstabber” left his lips, Clint knew he should’ve shut his insensitive fucking mouth, but he’s angry, and that’s not an emotion he experiences with any sort of regularity. And he can’t use his bow, _he can’t,_ so that red ire rests under his tongue instead. Festering.

“Regardless of anyone’s personal feelings,” Coulson’s hand twitches upward, but he slides it below his thigh, “SHIELD needs to know about this. It’s a matter of national, if not global, security. Not to mention one that Captain Rogers will have a…vested interest in.”

Clint feels his eyebrows pull together. “What’s Rogers got to do with this? Besides bleeding red, white, and eagles.”

“That’s Bucky Barnes,” Coulson frowns, gesturing at the Solider.

“Who?”

Nat grips his shoulder from where she’s finishing up wrapping his right side. “James Buchanan Barnes? Steve’s childhood best friend?”

Huh, those couldn’t be less similar life paths.

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Clint says, fending off Lucky’s playful nips to the hem of the shirt Nat’s helping him into.

“You didn’t recognize him from a history book? A museum?” she asks.

“Nat, I hate to break this to you and completely shatter your faith in the American education system, but I wasn’t staring at war heroes in my third-grade class.”

By the time Clint was in third grade, Barney was hatching plans to run away to the circus, and he still couldn’t read. Even a picture would’ve been lost on him.

Standing from the bean bag with his phone in his hand – all the while keeping Barnes in his eyeline – Coulson surreptitiously braces his body on the living room wall. The paleness Clint remembers from the visitor suite is gone, but the beads of sweat at his hairline aren’t. “SHIELD needs to know,” Coulson reiterates, “preferably sooner rather than later.”

“No,” Clint replies. There, he can be civil.

“No?”

“No,” he repeats.

“Clint –” Coulson begins, and Clint wants to snap at him not to call him that, but he settles for palming a roll of bandage tape and aiming for the phone screen.

There, he can’t be civil.

Said phone goes flying out of Coulson’s hand and skids along the hardwood floors, Barnes’s head jolting up at what Clint assumes is the jarring noise. Coulson follows the direction of his phone with a silent stare.

“Tasha,” Clint pleads, nudging her between himself and Coulson until they can’t see one another.

_I found him in a HYDRA facility with Pierce and Alpha,_ he signs, fingers clumsy from disuse in this way.

_You fought Rumlow,_ Natasha guesses.

Snorting, he signs a quick, _Not the point._ Then, _SHIELD can’t know._

She nods. _Not when we don’t know how much of SHIELD is truly SHIELD. You suspect Coulson?_ The last part is signed with an open expression, no judgment. Just two allies, friends, partners doing what they know will keep them alive.

In spite of everything, Clint knows Coulson isn’t HYDRA. He knows it the way he knows when to release an arrow – with a bone-deep, instinctive conviction.

He shakes his head.

_I have some contacts I need to reach out to. How deep this runs will dictate our next move,_ she signs.

_They won’t spook?_

_Not if they want to live,_ she smiles sharply, near imperceptibly tipping her neck back at Coulson. _Handle him. Nicely_.

With that, she’s out the front door.

“Nice,” Clint grumbles as he retrieves Coulson’s phone from the far corner. “I’m the nicest.”

“Sorry,” Clint says, mostly meaning it when he hands the phone back to Coulson, but not releasing his hold yet.

They’re the closest they’ve been to each other in upwards of a year.

Coulson doesn’t try and pull the phone away. “When haven’t I listened to you?” And Clint can just tell it’s said in a pained whisper.

“Never,” Clint answers immediately because it’s true.

“But you won’t tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you don’t trust me right now, Clint, but these are extraordinary circumstances. What you’re asking…” Coulson trails off.

Trust isn’t really the entire problem. Some parts of Agent Barton still trust Agent Coulson. What Clint’s skeptical of is Coulson’s devotion to what SHIELD stands for colliding with the emerging reality of the organization they’ve both called home for a long time. Barnes won’t be the collateral of that car crash if Clint can help it.

Letting go of the phone, Clint takes a cold step away from their mingling body heat.

“You owe me a no questions asked, and until he can look me in the eye and tell me what he wants, you owe him too.”

“Those are acceptable terms,” Coulson agrees, and Clint lets out a breath.

The _for now_ goes unspoken.

As does the, _you think anyone that looks like that_ now _did what they did voluntarily_ then?

Four hours later when Nat comes back, Clint learns a few things in no particular order: Barnes will eat if Clint eats, Nat TiVoed Dog Cops for him, and Coulson has been living in his apartment for the month Clint’s been gone.

“What, Stark’s giant cock tower in the middle of Manhattan isn’t good enough for his highness?” Clint hisses into his mattress up in the loft. He’d slept for two of the hours Nat was gone, resting his eyes and ears for the first time since who knows when.

“Stairs are a part of his PT,” Nat says, laying down next to him.

Underneath them, Coulson is providing a quiet commentary to Barnes on what looks like a documentary about cars through the ages.

“He came by thinking you’d be back by then,” she continues, prodding Clint’s pillow. “He wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t tell him to leave.”

She could’ve told Coulson to leave. Easily. But she’s orchestrating a conversation Clint doesn’t think they’re ready to have.

“Learn anything juicy?” Clint asks in a shameless change of subject and gets a piercing you-have-to-talk-to-him-sometime look in return.

“Half,” she says finally. “Half.”

Clint closes his eyes. “Did you get names.”

“A handful.”

“Nat.”

“Garrett, Ward, Kaminsky, Scarlotti, Carson, Winderfield, Kohl, Stiles, Darvin.”

Her hand moves to rest in his palm and she fingerspells the last name.

_S-I-T-W-E-L-L._

“Phil will be crushed,” Clint says quietly, tugging on a loose thread of his quilt.

“He’ll get over it if it means preserving the United States government.”

“This is too big for us to take down agents one by one, Clint,” she scowls, shifting closer on the bed, “Fury and Hill are clean. They need to know eventually.”

“They will. Just not now.”

“If you keep waiting for the perfect time to do things, you’re never going to do anything.”

“We’re not talking about governmental collapse anymore, are we.”

“We’re not.”

“I need time.”

Voice steely, Nat leans over his chest, red hair tickling the hollow of his throat. “You had your time. You had a month of it. This doesn’t get better until you talk to him.”

“What if it doesn’t,” Clint swallows, attempting to work the dryness from his throat, “get better?”

“Then it doesn’t, and you find out how to live with that.”

“He could at least recognize me,” Nat says a while later, leaning over the railing of the loft.

“Would you really want him to? Like this?”

None of them will sleep at the same time with their current house guest, so they do it in shifts, Clint setting up Barnes in the loft because if anyone deserves to have a bed right now, it’s him. Nat retreats to one of Clint’s vacant units which she’s somehow furnished. “What did you expect, Barton? You stole an entire building of safehouses.”

“Sleep tight, Barnes,” Clint says, feeling disturbingly like a parent as he tucks his quilt over Barnes’s shoulder.

Barnes gives him a par for the course blank face, but he latches onto the word _sleep,_ “Optimal rest levels will be achieved in 5.8 hours.”

“Yeah dude, you and I have a date with some French toast sticks. We’ll watch Dog Cops. Nat says it’s a satire about law enforcement, but we’ll make a die-hard Sergeant Whiskers fan outta you yet.”

That leaves Clint and Coulson. Awake. In the same room.

Together.

“So you live here now,” Clint says, back on the couch.

Smartly, Coulson’s chosen the armchair that was here when Clint got the building. “My apartment was requisitioned as a safehouse while I was…incapacitated.”

“Incapacitated,” Clint repeats, “that’s a pretty word it.”

Coulson’s lips thin. “I can make other arrangements.”

“Stay.” He kicks his legs out to stretch over the cushions. “Wouldn’t want you missing out on those stairs. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any other place that has ‘em.”

This time, what’s pulling at Coulson’s mouth is a tiny smile. It’s swiftly overtaken by a somber expression. “I’m sure you have questions.”

As a matter of fact, he does. There just might not be enough hours in the night.

“How are you…” Clint waves a hand at him.

“Alive? Summarily, Helen Cho.”

“The science lady?”

“Dr. science lady, but yes.”

They’re only two minutes into this, and Clint’s had enough – he’s not going to pull anymore goddamn teeth.

“We’re not doing this if you can’t quit that.”

And Coulson knows exactly what Clint’s talking about because his jaw locks up. “Quit what.”

“That thing you do – the Agent Coulson thing. Congrats champ, the award for most secretive secret agent already goes to you. But I’m not having a conversation with that, so pick how you wanna do this.”

_Pick if you’re gonna lie to me or not,_ Clint doesn’t say.

“Dr. Helen Cho is a world-renowned geneticist who studies tissue regeneration. SHIELD backs her research into trying to print tissue,” Coulson explains, eyes far away. “At the time,” he rubs at his chest, “the technology was highly experimental, and she refused to test it. But when she learned my name, she was much more willing to cooperate.”

“Why?”

“Her deceased husband and I share the same name.”

“That Fury’s idea?” Clint presses, hands on his knees. “Gotta love blatant emotional manipulation.” He purposefully doesn’t think of Captain America trading cards splattered with blood.

“Would you prefer I be dead, Clint?” Coulson snaps, and part of Clint’s glad he can still get Coulson to have an emotion, even if it’s building frustration.

“I spent six months thinking you were dead and that it was my fault!”

“Two of those months I was unconscious.”

Gnashing his teeth, Clint takes a long breath through his nose, feeling the itchy pull of pain in his ribs. “Fine, for _four months_ you were consciously being an asshole. Feel better?”

“No, Clint,” Coulson sighs, “I don’t feel better. I just want to make it clear that not everything I do is prearranged to hurt you.”

It’s as if Clint’s brain is a scratched record stuck on, _not everything I do is prearranged to hurt you._ “Not everything – but some things are. Why not tell me then?”

“Nick –”

“I don’t give a flying fuck about Nick fucking Fury,” Clint glares, burning, “You were awake for four months. Or could they really not remove your head from his ass?”

Ignoring the jab, Coulson turns to the end table next to his chair, and the utter defeat that crosses his face makes Clint want to let everything go and hug the man who can’t stop touching the injury that took his life, but he needs answers.

The five files under Coulson’s SHIELD personnel information that Clint “borrowed” from records are set on the coffee table in front of him so gently, he’s stunned they don’t float away.

Shit, he left those in the agency car.

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” Clint says sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck, “kinda forgot to put those back.”

“Those aren’t the same files.”

“Yes they –”

They aren’t.

Their lines are slightly crisper, the paper having seen less use than the other set.

“I would’ve given you my personal notes, but I asked them to be burned in the event of my death.” Coulson’s body is half turned away from him, the tightness in every muscle evident even under the baggy sweatshirt.

These are the unredacted copies. Clint flips them open so fast he gives himself a papercut.

Everything’s the same except for the date of birth – July 8, 1964 – and [redacted – refer to Senior Agent Coulson’s independent notes] is filled in:

_In the event of Strike Team Delta’s demise, protocol for the –_

_In the event of Strike Team Delta’s demise, Senior Agent Coulson will be reassigned to –_

_In the event of Strike Team Delta’s demise, Senior Agent Coulson will be reassigned as –_

_In the event of Strike Team Delta’s demise, Senior Agent Coulson will be instated as –_

_In the event of Strike Team Delta’s demise, Senior Agent Coulson will oversee the –_

Something isn’t adding up, and Clint’s never been all that good at math, but he can find a pattern with the best of them. Coulson’s anxiety is too extreme for showing Clint the realities of what happens when a handler loses his team; Coulson didn’t tell him he was alive; all the files are dated exactly a week and a half after the Siberia mission –

_All the files are dated exactly a week and a half after the Siberia mission._

In the event of Strike Team Delta’s demise, or Clint’s?

Natasha, as much as she cares about Clint and Coulson, can thrive on her own in a way Clint is incapable of. He can fake the indifferent lone wolf routine, but he needs people.

Looking up to Coulson’s back completely turned to him, Clint exhales harshly. “Nat was fine after the Siberia mission. I wasn’t.”

“I’m aware.”

Clint stands up from the couch, close the few steps between them. Uncertainly, he puts a hand on Coulson’s shoulder that’s practically touching his ear. “Even I can’t die five times, Phil. Why all the plans?”

“Because –” a sobbing laugh hiccups out of Coulson and he steps out from under Clint’s hand and spins around. “Because,” this time it’s smoother, bordering on Agent Coulson, “admin tends to frown upon including the possibility of telling your agent you’re in love with him in your contingencies. Apparently, it’s unprofessional.”

Detachedly, Clint watches the hand he still has hanging in the air because it’s better than feeling the fall off the axis he’s lived his life on since that same hand clasped with Coulson’s in an alleyway in Barcelona.

“I love you,” Coulson smiles sadly, and no three syllables have ever sounded so resigned coming out of his mouth. “I’m in love with you.”

No one’s said that to Clint before. Not his parents, not Barney, not Natasha.

“Fuck you. That’s not funny.”

“It isn’t. Fitting, since no one was laughing.”

“Alright,” Clint says, and for the first time, he fights a shake from his hands, “say you’re really in love with me –”

“I am _really_ in love with you –”

“–what was so wrong with just telling me? Any of it?”

_Talk to me, Barton,_ bashes around in Clint’s head, and not once did he ask Coulson in return.

“I thought a lot of things, Clint,” Coulson pulls at his face tiredly, breaking up the dim light from the street trickling in from the bay window. “Mostly I thought I should spare you from sparing my feelings any longer. Let my death be the clean break that it was. For too long I was selfish with your attention, your friendship.”

“I didn’t know I was sparing you anything.”

“You knew how I felt,” Coulson replies like it’s the defining fucking fact of his universe.

“Why would I know, Phil, huh? How would _I_ know what love is supposed’ta look like? You think I saw a lotta that from anyone?”

“You’re Hawkeye,” Coulson pushes back, moving closer in a burst of intensity. “You’re one of the most observant people in the world. How could you not have known?”

“Because you didn’t fucking tell me!”

And most of all, “Is that who you’d want to see it? Hawkeye? Is that what you want me for?”

“No,” Coulson whispers, a desperate hand softly encircling Clint’s wrist and a familiar thumb resting over his pulse. “No Clint. I wanted, I _want,_ you for you.”

“Who is that to you, Coulson. Who am I to you?”

Coulson’s mouth opens and shuts. Soundless. Then, “Clint, I love –”

“That’s not an answer.”

Clint’s other hand wraps around Phil’s, and for a moment, he looks so heartbreakingly hopeful. Only for it to vanish when Clint tugs Phil’s hand away from his wrist, Clint letting his own thumb brush over the scar between Phil’s thumb and index finger. The scar attached to the person who kept Clint sane through the worst weeks of his life, the person who saw something in him when no one else did.

The person who loves him.

The person who didn’t tell him.

“Put this away, because I don’t want it. Not like this. Not where you can only tell me how much you care about me through contingency plans. Not where my fucking absence one day means more to you than what we could’a had right here. Right now.”

Phil Coulson’s eyes fill, red-rimmed and watery.

Agent Coulson puts it away, straight-backed and unflappable.

“I should go,” Coulson says with an even voice. “I appreciate your hospitality, Agent Barton.”

About to turn away to do some emotionally unhealthy things, Clint decides to take one last look because he hates himself, his gaze trailing down to the artificial brightness of Coulson’s phone screen, and the contact he’s hovering over.

Steve Rogers.

“Why Steve?” Clint questions, and he spots a deer caught in phone lights.

Realization dawns on him. “He knew. Steve knew you were alive.”

“Clint –”

“You bastard,” Clint spits, “you’re staying here. Go the fuck to sleep, it’s Nat’s turn.”

Stomping all the way down to 4G, Clint bangs on the front door with a fist.

Nat swings the door open like she was standing behind it the whole time, a pistol the only visible weapon in her hand, but Clint’s been friends with her long enough to know she’s armed to the teeth almost always.

Especially when she’s breaking in a new safehouse.

He crashes past her into an apartment near identical to his – small hallway leading into the kitchen leading into the living room, bedrooms off of it – save for the tasteful furniture.

“I take it things didn’t go well?” Nat asks, briefly disappearing to stow her gun.

“Did you know.”

“Did I know what.”

That’s too diplomatic for Clint’s comfort, too much like she’s testing the waters for what she’ll have to give up.

Blood boiling, Clints digs his nails into the tops of his thighs, smelling the strong aroma of Nat’s stupid clove twig water. “I don’t wanna play this game with you. Did you know.”

She breezes silently toward the sofa, and Clint can practically see the cogs working in her head to determine what he knows that he thinks she knows, because while Nat may be more open with him than anyone else, she’s still a born and bred spy, and her currency of preference is secrets.

“Steve came by the apartment about a week after you left,” Nat says, tone unusually cowed, “he said he found out about Coulson not long after the last time the two of you spoke. The guilt was eating at him.”

Not enough.

“How. How did he find out?”

“He went to Fury and said he wanted to sign something for Coulson’s memorial, that it was the honorable thing to do.” She gets up to pull the kettle off the stove, the ringing not so different than the sound already in Clint’s ears. “Either Steve asked too many questions or Fury’s poker face went on vacation that day because Steve pressed and had his answers.”

“And it didn’t occur to you,” Clint says, watching her doctor a teacup, “that might be something I’d want to know?”

“It did,” she sips her tea, “but I made a call.”

“Not your call to make.”

“You made it my call to make.”

“The hell I –”

“This past year, you’ve been the worst you’ve ever been,” Nat grabs his arm to get him to stop pacing, “and I’m convinced you don’t remember most of it. Telling you about Steve wasn’t going to change the fact that Coulson was dead and then he wasn’t and he didn’t want you to know.”

“That’s not the point,” Clint says helplessly.

“Then what is, Barton? There is no you and Steve. He didn’t owe you anything. Coulson didn’t tell Fury to tell Steve. It was emotional pain you didn’t need.”

“You’re right, Nat,” Clint replies, dry and acerbic, “Maybe I should just stop expecting the truth from you when you don’t think I _need_ it.”

Almost out the door, Nat says, “The truth is a matter of circumstance, Clint. And I didn’t know what you were going to do if someone changed the circumstances on you one more time.”

Drink.

Drinking is what Clint’s going to do up on the roof with Nat’s imported vodka since she doesn’t _need_ it, she just _wants_ it.

Bed Stuy isn’t prettier in the dark, it just hides all the things you don’t want to see and uncovers the other things you _really_ don’t want to see. Hanging onto what happened with Steve is doing precisely that for Clint – he gets to ignore that Coulson’s in love with him and also gets to wallow in how much that hurts.

Clint’s used to clawing for every scrap of attention he can get, every semblance of care, so he understands. Why Coulson didn’t tell him. Why’d he’d rather suffer in silence than ever say anything because at least you chose it. You put your heart in someone else’s hands the second you tell them you love them. After that, it’s up to them. The pain of rejection is indefinite, and Clint may not have seen it until the very moment those words came out of Coulson’s mouth – or he didn’t let himself see it before then – but he’s as sure as he can possibly be about a hypothetical that he wouldn’t have said no.

He’s as unsure as he can possibly be about where that leaves them now. Stuck between writing someone off for the rest of your statistically likely short life and loving someone for the rest of your statistically likely short life is not prime real estate. If Clint let himself, he could do either. But he knows which one is easier.

For someone who laughs in the face of the easy way _and_ the hard way, that self-awareness doesn’t make much of a difference.

Because if what Coulson’s been doing for, with, and in the name of Clint for all these years is, in fact, love, then Clint Barton’s loved Phil Coulson all along.

And he sure as hell didn’t know that.

“You’re doin’ that wrong,” a gravelly voice says from the far edge of the roof, and Clint unthinkingly chucks a six-hundred-dollar bottle of vodka at their head. The thud of heavy glass hitting a palm in an unmistakable catch is nearly as surprising as the Punisher sitting down next to him on the ledge of the roof, their legs swinging out into open air.

“That ain’t right either, Barton,” he says, and Clint doesn’t want to know how the Punisher knows his name, but two can play at game.

“Castle.”

The guy grunts and starts yanking off one of his tac gloves with his teeth before twisting open the bottle of vodka.

Expensive vodka still smells like rubbing alcohol and Castle doesn’t flinch as it pours over a deep cut on the back of his hand.

“The Black Widow’s gonna eat your face if she sees you disrespecting her booze like this,” Clint mostly jokes since stealing her alcohol is already a major crime, but _wasting_ her alcohol is worthy of death.

“Nat likes me.”

“She does not.”

“Shows what you know, I’m the favorite.”

“M’telling her you beat me up.”

“Don’t know if you’ve had the strength to look at your ugly mug in a while, Barton, but someone got there first. How’s the other guy lookin’?”

“The other guy was Brock Rumlow, so pretty fucking terrible.”

Castle pours a little more vodka on the cut then shoves his tac glove back on. “You and your guy havin’ a domestic?”

Clint doesn’t know what they were having. All he knows is that he doesn’t want Coulson to go away just as much as he wants to stay angry.

“So what if we were. Enjoy the show?”

“Whole block did,” Castle says, his boots rhythmically scraping the side of the building.

That reminds Clint as he looks down at his socks – one says Friday and the other has little purple ducks on it – he really should’ve put on shoes before coming out here.

“Far as I can tell, this isn’t your neighborhood.”

“Christ, Barton, I thought you were the friendly one.”

“Nope.”

Sighing, Castle knocks his shoulder into Clint’s and he absolutely doesn’t squeak. It was the wind. One of Castle’s guns. Daredevil crying all the way from the Kitchen because he doesn’t get to be harassed by the Punisher tonight.

“Kid, I’m not in the business of giving unsolicited advice but here it is: anyone that’s got the power to get you up to a rooftop to brood like this is probably the one that best talks you down. Don’t fuck it up because you’ve got a bug up your ass.”

I’m _not the one with the bug up their ass,_ he thinks, affronted.

“SHIELD put a hit out on you a few years ago,” Clint muses, having lapsed into a memory lacking self-preservation, “Even followed you around for a while. I’m starting to regret saying no.”

To Clint’s further surprise, Castle barks out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I can take a hint.” He stands and his knees pop, Clint wincing along with him. “I’ll let ya’ return that,” he says, setting the vodka bottle on the ledge next to him like he’s doing Clint a favor.

“Oh would you?”

“You could live if she pushed you off this roof,” Castle throws over his shoulder. “Maybe.”

“I’d be the worst ghost, Castle,” Clint yells back, “I’d never shut the fuck up about us sharing a name, Francis!”

Another laugh carries over the rooftops and Clint feels a little lighter.

Everyone’s in a stalemate of Clint’s own making for three weeks after he comes to the conclusion that the easiest way to piss Natasha off is to hang out with Barnes, and the easiest way to make Coulson tense is to hang out with Barnes.

“Day hasn’t started till I’ve pissed off a Russian,” Clint mutters, forcing two pieces together.

Barnes and he are doing a jigsaw puzzle of Coney Island, and even for him, Barnes is intensely focused. Clint doesn’t have the heart to tell him that the thing’s missing at leave a third of its pieces.

“Y’know how some things are obvious, but in that weird way that you don’t notice they’re obvious until someone tells you?” Clint asks.

“…”

“So what you’re saying is,” he smiles as Barnes undoes the ill-fitting pieces he’s jammed together with nimble fingers, “I’m right and everyone else is wrong? Thanks, man.” Clint offers him a fist, and Barnes stares at it, perplexed.

Well, he knows what they’re doing tomorrow.

Coulson’s avoiding Clint the way Clint would avoid him if their situations were reversed. As it stands, Clint doesn’t think he has the right to miss him, or demand he stay here where Clint can see him no matter how he feels. For a long time, Clint’s definition of love was someone that didn’t hit him. It got less sad over the years, but not by much. He’s never been in a real relationship before, and if he wants to be, he has to take the time to figure out what that means to him, and if that also means space, Clint has a few things he can fix first.

“Hi Kate in 3A,” Clint grins, holding a paper bag, “Is your showerhead broken?”

Kate looks at him like the screws are actually falling out of his head. “We’re not in a porno, Clint,” she frowns, pushing the door closed.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” he backtracks, raising his hands in surrender, “I was wonderin’ if you still were interested in an archery lesson?”

“What if I want someone dead?”

A distant, distant recollection of him saying something along those lines has him considering it, but he wants to call the kid’s bluff more. “Alright. Who?”

“My dad,” she replies, chin set in a stubborn line as she kicks her door back open. Clint takes that for the invitation it is and follows her into the apartment. “He’s a Grade-A dick.”

She throws herself onto a couch that rivals his own for the title of world’s ugliest. Grimacing, she pulls a textbook out from underneath her, shoving a stray sticky note back inside the front cover.

“Yeah?” Clint goes to lean against the opposite wall, feeling Kate’s do-it-yourself drywall filling in arrow punctures through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “How do you want it? Bullet through the head, bullet through the eye, arrow through the neck, arrow through the eye, stabbed, stabbed repeatedly, poisoned, drowned, suffocated, strangled, drawn and quartered –”

“Okay, okay,” Kate interrupts, the patented exasperated-with-Clint-Barton expression on her face. “Yes, I would like an archery lesson. As long as it doesn’t come with another, ‘I’m a killer, Bella’ speech.”

“Cross my heart.”

“Good,” she smiles, eyeing Clint’s bag. “What’s that?”

“It’s the pizza,” Clint explains, “for the porno.”

Now he knows how Castle feels, except it’s a medical textbook getting thrown at his head instead of a bottle of vodka. Like Castle, he manages to catch it, he just doesn’t look as cool doing it.

“It’s an armguard,” Clint says, tossing her the bag. “For your shitty form.” Kate makes an offended noise. “Or it’s an armguard to replace your shitty armguard.”

“Thanks, Clint. I think.”

“But which one is it? God, is it both? As your wise, all-knowing, instructor, I should know –”

The second textbook he doesn’t catch.

“C’mon, Barnes,” Clint says, stuffing his keys and phone into his jacket pockets. “Let’s go scope out places for Katie to shoot at. I hear walking is good for old people.”

“You’re not his therapist, Barton,” Nat had said while he and Clint – mostly Clint – played Pictionary (Barnes was very good at drawing the layouts of unknown buildings). Clint’s under no delusion that anything he’s doing is permanently healing Barnes’s psyche, and the man is going to need some seriously intensive professional help someday, but he doesn’t think he’s hurting anyone when Barnes starts screaming a little less at night because Logan’s sleeping with him, or the way he’s started to do things unprompted.

Or right now – Barnes walks almost next to him, instead of a few steps behind.

About an hour of walking has them nearing Red Hook, shipping yards and pre-Civil war warehouses curving along the harbor. Stuck in the stretch of days before winter finally gives in to spring, they’re not among many others on the cobblestone of Coffey Street, the wet white and gray of the outdoors not so alluring to tourists and locals alike.

“Then I said that I didn’t take him for the ‘handling’ type,” Clint recounts, following behind Barnes who’s moving with a purpose Clint doesn’t register yet, “and after that there was something about a wet firework, Rollins, and a stick in one of their asses, it was – Barnes, this is an alley.”

Alone with one of history’s most prolific assassins in an enclosed space is not how he wants to go out – and was he being led here the whole time? – but he takes a second to catalogue Barnes’s body language. His fists clench and his shoulders heave harshly up and down, and Clint realizes he’s not the one that’s trapped. Barnes is.

The shaking only gets worse the farther into the alley he gets. Clint has half a mind to order him out, but Barnes’s metal hand shoots out to steady himself on the brick wall, his head dangling down to the telltale gasps of retching.

“No sweat, man. You’re not a real New Yorker until you’ve yakked in an alley.” Clint pats his metal hand lightly. “In this century at least.”

Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” blasts out of Clint’s phone immediately once they get back to the apartment. First instinct goes to Stark, but Clint doesn’t have his number (not that that would stop a determined Tony Stark), so whoever’s calling thinks he would answer based on familiar association by itself.

Joke’s on them.

No, the joke’s on Clint because it doesn’t stop. He turns off his phone – it doesn’t stop. He puts it on mute – it doesn’t stop. He puts it in a bag of rice – it doesn’t stop.

That leaves the nuclear option.

“Logan! C’mere you little gremlin.”

Logan’s too busy dozing in the bend of Barnes’s knees, purring audible and blue eyes blinking lazily.

That leaves the slightly less nuclear option.

“Fucking what,” Clint snaps into the receiver.

“Charles wishes to speak to Mr. Barnes,” Erik Lehnsherr answers, smug and satisfied.

“Hey, Area 51, I’m not your personal errand b –”

The phone floats out of his hand and over to Barnes at the bay window, where he’s watching it like a bomb.

–oy,” Clint finishes.

The Professor calls every morning and night on Clint’s phone that’s steadily turning into _Barnes’s phone,_ and Clint would be a little more irritated by that if Barnes didn’t start hovering around Clint at the usual times like he has chocolate-coated secrets to life hidden in his pocket rather than the burner it really is.

“I’d do it again,” Natasha says, putting a coffee from Killer Bean straight into Clint’s hand. She had set it at his elbow once and never again.

See, Clint knows that. Natasha lives her life and makes her choices so that she doesn’t regret anything. Ever. That’s why her apologies – or her moments of concession wherein she can understand why something has upset him – aren’t in words. They’re in coffee cups, TV recordings, and watching his pets so he can have a breakdown in multiple states instead of one, like the US Constitution intended.

Burning his tongue on the coffee, Nat’s shoulders relax at the acceptance of her peace offering.

“Phil’s in love with me.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “How long?”

“A while.”

“Is that…bad?”

“It’s not not good.”

Nat flicks his knuckle at that, and he takes another scorching swig of coffee.

“I don’t know, Nat,” Clint says, tracing the sharpie ‘Naomi’ on the cup, “I guess I never thought about it until right when he said it. I keep wanting to say I didn’t see anything, but maybe it’s just me. Maybe I didn’t know what I was seeing.”

_Coulson taking him to see Petronia one last time._

_Coulson protecting the torn-up skin of his back in Siberia._

_Coulson chasing him through Eastern Europe._

_Coulson shooting the shit with him on missions._

_Coulson telling him about his parents._

_Coulson, Coulson, Coulson._

“Obfuscation is his job, Clint.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why he’s doing it off the job, too.”

Hoisting himself through the narrow kitchen window, Clint vaults over the sink and lands on silent feet, only to see _Blade Runner_ playing on the TV. He had left late from shooting with Kate and had forgotten his keys – knocking at night with the people he lives with would’ve been worse than breaking in.

Stretched out on the couch in a rumpled suit is Coulson, the socks with the miniature suits on them that Clint had gotten him for some forever ago birthday on his feet. According to Nat, he’s back at work, taking over the SHIELD liaison position for the Avengers from Sitwell.

Purple bags stain his under eyes, and he doesn’t just have that end-of-winter skin tone, but a working to exhaustion pallor. Clint circles a hand around his ankle, relieved to see his breaths remain deep and easy.

“‘It’s too bad she won’t live,’” Clint whispers along with Gaff on screen, “‘but then again, who does?’”

_When he first wakes up in the safehouse bed, it takes Clint a telling minute to realize why. It’s cold, his limbs sluggish and heavy, but he forces himself to get moving. He won’t sleep in a cold bed. He won’t sleep in the cold. Too many memories._

_Paralyzed by the worry that if he succumbed to his drooping lids, would he wake up in the morning?_

_His fingers start to tingle when he makes it to the living room with the roaring fireplace and working electricity. “Barton?” Coulson calls from the couch, a stack of files next to him and his glasses perched on his nose._

_Reluctantly, Clint whispers a goodbye to the sweet, sweet flames and starts the process of arranging long limbs on an occupied couch._

_“Think the heat crapped out in my room.”_

_“Hm, I’ll have to put in a work order.”_

_“What’re you doing?” Clint asks, reaching for the TV remote and flicking through the channels. He grins when he sees what he wants._

_“Reading your scintillating report,” Coulson writes another note in the margins, “I didn’t know a candelabra could be used in such a way.”_

_“Don’t bullshit me, Sir,” Clint says, leaning toward the TV screen with his elbows on his knees, “I’ve heard the gas station story.”_

_“What has it turned into now? Six men, myself, a melon baller, and my wits?”_

_“I think ‘your wits’ has worked its way out.”_

_Clint feels a file slap his head lightly, then the weight of Coulson sinking back into the cushions. Coulson nods his head at the screen. “Blade Runner fan, Barton?”_

_“First movie I ever snuck into, and Harrison Ford isn’t hard to look at.”_

_There’s a visible flush to Coulson’s cheeks. He must have been sitting out here much longer than Clint. “That he is not,” he chuckles._

_They’re catching the movie near the end, and Roy’s soliloquy begins in blood and shadow and rain, Deckard laying on the roof beside him in the heavy downpour._

_“‘All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain,” Clint quotes quietly, “‘Time to die.” The cough between “like” and “tears” always gets him, and he turns his face into his shoulder._

_A hand lands on his own over his knee. “Why do you like it?”_

_Anyone else and Clint wouldn’t have answered, would’ve been down their throat about minding their own fucking business and Clint can cry if he damn well wants to. But this is Coulson, the man with the patience of a saint who’s never done anything with what Clint’s talked about besides remember it._

_“Dunno,” Clint rasps, squeezing Coulson’s hand. “It just always makes me think about reality, what it means to be human, y’know? And what if we live in a world that’s never gonna see that right?”_

Shivering himself back to awareness, Clint creeps up the stairs to the loft, pulling the rainbow afghan out from under his bed to drape over Coulson. There’s no chill in the air to speak of. Both Barnes and he have a thing about cold, so Clint’s been spending a small fortune footing the electric bill.

He meant to give it back earlier, but now is as good a time as any. Coulson’s compass button is cradled tightly in his grip, and Clint places it soundlessly into the sleepy curl of Coulson’s hand that’s escaped the afghan.

Unbeknownst to Clint, he’s been seeing things wrong for years, seeing Coulson wrong long after he thought he could read him. That’s the problem with extended observation – you get complacent in your conclusions because you don’t have to share them with anyone, and you’re not looking with a specific purpose; you’re just trying to get to know the man who saved your life, who was the first person to ever apologize to you, and the way you do that is to funnel what you see into what makes the most sense.

What made the most sense was that Coulson was an all-around good person and a company man till the end. Not that Coulson was – is – in love with him. Has been for years.  


This can’t be thought about in terms of if Coulson would do worse to Clint.

It has to be thought about in terms of love.

And Clint doesn’t know what he has left to give that he can afford to lose.

His phone buzzes in his back pocket while he’s camped out at a twenty-four-hour diner, drinking lukewarm coffee and picking at a piece of pie. The Professor usually calls around this time, so he’s confused to see a text from Nat.

Then he’s terrified, his heart taking another trip down to his ass.

_Pizza just got here. Come get it while it’s hot!_

Intruder alert.

The apartment’s been tossed. Ransacked is more like it except that what’s been stolen are people. Phil and Barnes are gone.

Sprays of bullet holes litter the walls, the cushions of the Belarus couch have been slashed open, the white entrails spewing out, and Petronia’s afghan is soaking in a growing pool of crimson.

“It’s not their blood, Clint.” Nat stands in front of him until the words sink in, green eyes cold and roiling.

“Then whose –”

He tries to take a step around the couch to see, but Nat moves with him, cupping his face so he stays still. “I can tell you what that is, and you can decide if you want to see.”

Shaking his head forcefully, he pushes forward and falls to his knees.

Logan.

His first friend in the whole world, body as riddled with bullets as the walls, is blurred by Clint’s tears. Hands hovering uselessly because he wants to fix it – _let him fix it_ – he screams, forehead hitting the floor. From somewhere far away, Clint hears his own agony, but it doesn’t stop Logan’s blood from seeping into his skin, and it’s horrible to think that Clint’s going to be the one bleeding now for the rest of his life.

Every single bullet. He would’ve taken every single bullet.

“Lucky. Where’s Lucky.”

“Under the bed. I couldn’t get him to come out.”

Clint’s up like a shot, climbing the stairs to lay down on his stomach next to his bed.

Lucky’s there. Alive, and not making a single sound.

“C’mere, honey,” Clint coaxes with a dry whisper, “you’re okay.”

Some wiggling has Lucky out and cuddling in his lap, and Clint barely gets his breath back from the golden ball he’s pulled into his arms. Standing, Clint blanches at the red handprints he’s made on Lucky’s fur, but they need to get out of here.

“Your place,” he says to Nat, and she leads the way without looking back.

Nat’s cleaning the blood out of Lucky’s fur while Clint washes his hands. In the mirror, he looks a wreck. Eyes swollen, hair almost past his ears, and he needs a shave. Putting his neck under the water, Clint white knuckles the sink.

“What happened.”

“I only got here a few minutes before you,” Nat relays, pulling down the showerhead to rinse Lucky’s fur. “Someone had to have been watching to see when we both left the building. Multiple someone’s.”

“So either HYDRA or SHIELD-HYDRA took Barnes back, and what? Kept Phil for ransom?”

“SHIELD doesn’t do hostage negotiations.”

“Don’t remind me,” he groans, running wet fingers through his hair. “HYDRA would’a just killed him. Here. Why move him?”

“Clint, this was about as personal of a hit as it gets.” She shakes out a bath towel, drying Lucky’s fur. “Your building, your pet, your…Phil.”

“They’ll kill him at a secondary location to make you feel like you could’ve done something. They’ll make you hope.”

Reaching down for the bundle of Lucky, Clint adds, “Makes sense that the location would be just as per –”

“Shut up,” Nat whispers, holding her hand over his mouth, “I heard something.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Clint says, muffled, opening Nat’s spacious towel cabinet and placing Lucky gently inside.

_Follow,_ Nat signs the Delta hand signal.

_Aye, aye, Captain,_ Clint gives back.

They stand on either side of the bathroom door since it’s about two Nat somersaults from the main living space.

_Three, two, one,_ Clint signs, throwing the door open.

Dammit, it was three Nat somersaults.

She pops up, stiletto blades wickedly gleaming in either hand, ready to challenge anyone against her speed and flexibility when she just…stops. Her knives drop to the floor in a clatter, and if Clint had to describe her expression, he would say “dumbfounded.”

The Black Widow is dumbfounded.

“Mrow.”

“Was that the something?” Clint laughs hysterically, kneeling beside a Logan enthralled in Nat’s throw pillows. Logan pads toward him of his own volition, scratching his head against Clint’s outstretched fingers before working his way under the warmth of Clint’s sweatshirt to climb up his chest.

An ecstatic Lucky licks at Logan’s face as Clint leans down to pet him, and Clint gets a bite to the chin for it.

“Barton, come look at this.”

“Only you would find an immortal cat,” Nat smiles, running her palm between Logan’s ears. The pool of blood in Clint’s apartment is now home to six abandoned bullets, and he doesn’t get it, but he doesn’t care.

“Or he’s on life number eight,” Clint says, feeling Logans purrs ricochet against his chest. “Either way, I’m gonna shoot someone six times in the face.”

“Charming,” she rolls her eyes indulgently.

Adrenaline has Clint walking in circuits because now that he can briefly stop imagining his dead cat, he can switch focus to Barnes and his…Phil.

“This is on me, Tasha. I shouldn’t have taken –”

“You saved a man’s life,” she interjects, scanning the scene and paying attention to Clint with a split gaze, “He would’ve died with them.”

“He could die now.”

“That’s a mercy if it saves him from another fifty years of servitude,” Nat argues, staring intently at the Belarus couch.

“We waited to tell anyone because of me.”

“We had to wait anyway.” She circles the couch, pulling the destroyed cushions off the frame. “For my contacts and for Sitwell to finally be transferred out as liaison.”

“But what if someone tailed us –”

“No one tailed you, no cameras outside that facility saw enough of you to have a lead. Or do I have to remind you you’re a trained professional?”

“Nat, do you and my couch have something to tell me?” Clint asks, ignoring her interrogation.

“How did you get this here?”

Clint makes a face. “You tell me.”

“Why would I tell you?”

“You put this here,” he insists, waving at the couch.

“I did not.”

Unbidden, Rumlow’s words start to echo:

_“Don’t matter how smart you are. You can’t run from what you can’t see.”_

Pressing a finger to his lips, Clint hooks his hands around the front edge of the couch frame, flipping it over. Underside exposed, he cuts into the fabric and padding covering the springs with his third favorite knife. There, tangled carefully in the nest of wire, is a bug.

He has a strong urge to track down the Punisher, brandishing the bug with a, “See Castle, I didn’t have a bug up my ass. It was under it.”

“Scratch that,” Clint says, “I’m gonna shoot Rumlow six times in the face.”

“We’re going to have to call someone,” Nat replies, tone ablaze.

“The Ghostbusters?”

They don’t call the Ghostbusters. Clint thinks he would’ve preferred it to who they actually do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're like me and you irrationally worry about how a fic is going to end, then just know that I'm the sappiest sap to ever sap, and this has the happiest ending ever.
> 
> Next up: The Avengers.


End file.
